


Perfect Coincidence

by fauxpromises



Series: Synchronicity [2]
Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, F/M, Memory Loss, Post-Canon, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxpromises/pseuds/fauxpromises
Summary: “Would we even remember this place?” he asked harshly now, and he was caught hopelessly between the desire to remember and forget. It turned his next words to a pitiful murmur. “Would you—remember me?”She smiled just the same, and he wondered if the light in her eyes was as much an illusion as the rest of the world around them.“I could never forget.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A sort of foreword.** This work and the character study therein is inspired in part by _Remain in Light_ , an album by Talking Heads. The theme of this album has been described as being "identity disturbance", and by and large deals with ideas of self-doubt and, to an extent, dissociation. In some ways, a struggle against the inevitability of reality. You might say it fits well with a post-canon character arc for a certain someone.

Kuja awoke to birdsong and the scent of wet grass.

A curious thing, really, that he should awake at all—for every fragmented memory that flitted past his tightly closed eyes, on the edge of his already dim consciousness, led to the same unavoidable conclusion. The events that preceded it had bled into one, be it of warring gods or a familiar, frantic voice as the colors slowly melted from the world— _and he was—_

His racing thoughts halted as blue eyes opened on a vast sky of the same shade, the soft forms of clouds drifting through it like ships against the waves. Moving his stiff neck painfully to one side, he could see that the sky gave way to a lush green field that carried far off into the distance.

Gulls careened by overhead, shrieking to each other as they sailed off toward a faraway sea. A gentle wind blew, teasing his silver hair into his face as it parted the stalks of grass that curled around him.

A rather trite afterlife, if the fate that lingered in his mind had proven true.

Testing this theory, he attempted to twitch the fingers of his left arm. His body obeyed the command. The very concrete feeling of joints and nerves acting together seemed to lend some credence to the idea that he was, indeed, still alive.

He would have to work on the _where_ and _how_ , but this was a start.

With a renewed effort, he now took a chance at getting up. Leaning weight onto his right arm, however, proved to be a disastrous miscalculation as an unbearable pain spiked up through his wrist. He cringed, biting back a groan.

Yes, he was very much alive. And perhaps not so fortunately, given that he appeared to be in the middle of nowhere _and_ grievously injured.

He pulled himself into a sitting position on his good arm; his legs seemed willing to comply with this request. A cursory examination of the rest of his body revealed no other outstanding damage aside from bruising and positively _ruined_ attire. His robes were tattered and bloody, though with whose blood he was unsure. And a hint of silver draped delicately over his ankle…

Revulsion rose in his chest at the sight. _That_ was not supposed to be there.

What had become of his enchantment? It was a trifling thing to worry about in his present state, but the magics he employed to conceal it had no cause to fail. That opened up the possibility of some kind of silencing force, and this would unequivocally mean that he was lost _and_ vulnerable.

He tried to channel energy into a basic healing spell, mind attempting to reach out to the flow of life around him with the effortlessness of habit. And found—

Nothing. Like a grasping hand cutting through empty air, he felt nothing at all.

Panic rose anew in his chest— _lost and vulnerable_. A great deal of the confidence he demonstrated was owed in no small part to his mastery of all things magic, something he could freely admit in the sanctity of his own mind. It would be very difficult to make sense of his situation if he was picked off in the wilderness by some marauding beast.

Carefully, Kuja rose to his feet. He could see the swell of a grassy hill a scarce distance away, rising over the surrounding land. A vantage point, perhaps.

If he could spot civilization, there would be people. People meant commerce, and commerce meant curatives for purchase. Surely he had been afflicted with some form of silencing, or otherwise simply expended his mana.

Though, his mind challenged him, that still did not explain his dispelled glamour.

He put this concern briefly out of his thoughts as he trudged up the hill, focusing on the dilemma at hand. Some voice in his foggy memories seemed to deride his survival efforts, a faceless heckling that caused a ripple of terror to flow through him.

He could _almost_ picture its owner. Close, but not quite close enough.

Kuja cradled his broken forearm to his middle as he surveyed the land beyond his position. The field dived down the hill to stretch out toward the horizon, a winding river running from east to west a short distance from where he stood. Beyond that, no more than a kilometer away, was what appeared to be a small village.

A sigh of relief escaped him. Respite, if not answers, would be in his near future.

* * *

The sound of children’s voices carrying on the wind greeted him when he arrived.

With the advantage of closer inspection, the town was even smaller than it had appeared from the nearby hill. Three tiny cottages were visible, evidence of repairs in progress where wood and stone were neatly stacked.

Wherever he was, Kuja thought, it had seen war very recently. War, too, seemed to resonate with some significance in his memories, but this was as tenuous in his mind as the rest. He could recall names, places, yet they lacked the context that would properly illuminate his connection to them.

His musing was interrupted with an excited shout.

“Hey! Who’s that?”

A child, rushing toward him. Three others were following, each face flushed from the exertion of running and play.

The leader who had spoken, a blonde boy of no more than seven, came to a stop. His eyes were wide as he stared up at the stranger—was it fear?

No, it was mere curiosity; the boy was smiling broadly now. It was only in the wisps of a half-remembered time—somewhere else—that fear and awe were all that he could command in others.

The children were quick to surround him, a tangle of intrigued voices.

“—never seen ‘em before!”

“Another one of Mama’s friends! Maybe?”

“Sarah—go get one of the grownups!”

The source of their interest scowled, raising his uninjured arm to quiet them. The throng of chatter rapidly dimmed to a few hushed whispers.

“Who is in charge of this place?” Kuja spoke harshly, glancing over the group with a cold gaze that immediately silenced the remaining voices. “I haven’t the time nor patience for the questions of children.”

“In charge?” a girl repeated. “You mean Mama?”

Another frown. These children spoke of a mother, but he saw no signs of any adult presence whatsoever. The small plot of farmland was unmanned, the building materials idle. Was one woman and her children the village’s only occupants? It seemed an absurd notion.

His question was abruptly answered as a female voice drew the attention of the group.

“Oh—!”

A young woman had joined them now, one of her hands being led along by a girl from the band of children while the other cradled a bundled infant to her chest. She parted the small crowd, greeted by a chorus of voices once again.

“All of you! This is no way to treat a visitor!” the woman reprimanded, her voice sterner than her youthful appearance suggested. She looked to be no older than twenty, if even that, and Kuja found himself wondering if it had indeed been war that left this place full of only women and children.

The woman’s attention turned to the visitor in question as the children fell quiet at her command.

“I’m so sorry for the children’s behavior! We rarely see any unfamiliar faces around here.” The smile she had worn was soon to vanish, however, as she took note of his state. Her expression became one of concern. “Oh—no! What happened? You look—”

“Dreadful. Yes,” he finished dryly. “I’m a—traveling merchant. I was ambushed by highwaymen and—if you’ve any supplies to spare, I’m certain I could make it worth your while.”

Fortunate that lying still came relatively easy to him. Realistically, he had nothing to bargain with, but if he could manage to restore his magic, payment would be hardly necessary where force would suffice.

“O-of course!” The woman nodded, her eyes now trailing over the damage that he had sustained. When her gaze lingered a bit too long on the twitch of silver behind him, he cleared his throat irritably. “We don’t have a shop here in Mobliz, but someone knows how to treat injuries. We wouldn’t—we don’t want payment.”

Kuja smirked. That would save him some effort, at least.

“There—” She motioned to one of the shabby cottages behind them. “The children will take you over to meet her. They call her ‘Mama’, but—her name is Terra.”

_Terra._

The word knocked the wind from his lungs, the fingers of his uninjured hand flexing into a tight fist.

 _That was it._ The nexus of his tattered memories. At the very center, holding them together.

_A harsh blue light that he had been born of—_

A thread.

_—and a woman’s soft smile._

An impossible coincidence.

He winced. The dull ache that had accompanied his attempts to remember—it had swelled into a searing pain. Too much, too fast.

His lost memories had perhaps been better left forgotten.

“Are you all right?”

The woman’s voice again, recalling him to the present. Her face was painted with worry, holding her baby closer.

“Y-yes. It’s—” The mage shook his head. “It’s nothing. Please, bring me to your healer.”

A girl’s small hand took the one that hung limp at his side, her bright blue eyes and warm smile beaming up at him. The familiar underpinnings of disgust that would accompany unnecessary contact—he felt it briefly, as the child pulled him insistently toward the nearby cottage, but could summon no will to shun the gesture. His mind was still reeling with the thought, the question—

_Was it her?_

The hazy memory of a smile and gentle giggle, foggy images that rapidly began to fill in and take shape.

_It couldn’t be anyone else._

One of the children tapped on the door once, twice.

_“I won’t forget …”_

And it opened to reveal a young woman, a face framed with blonde curls and eyes of a striking shade of amethyst. Smiling, always smiling, at the children that eagerly crowded around her.

_“ …the kindness you’ve shown me.”_

Blue met violet, and the smile fell from her face.


	2. Chapter 2

His breath had become thoroughly lodged in his throat as the woman’s gaze swept over him, transfixed.  

She wore an expression that landed somewhere between fear and doubt, as though questioning the reality of the man standing at her doorstep. It mirrored the sense of quiet, concealed dread rising within him; a fleeting recollection on the tip of his mind, too insane to give voice to.  

Did he _really_ know this woman? Her face—her _name_ —had been crystal clear mere moments ago, the word itself tangled up with emotions that were as conflicting as they were obscured.  

The incongruity of his own memories had truly started to unnerve him. Kuja questioned each of them now, the names and faces that swirled together at the edges of his thoughts. He wanted nothing more than to laugh bitterly at this—this prelude to madness that he had awoken into. 

Feeling the acute pressure of her scrutiny, he released a shaky exhale, willing himself to speak—explain his presence— _something_. Being lost for words felt so foreign to him, no matter how clouded his thoughts. 

“Is dinner ready yet, Mama?”  

A boy’s voice. The woman—Terra, as he had been told—quickly cast her gaze downward to the children grasping at her dress. Slowly, as if with some effort, her warm smile returned.  

“Not yet! It’ll be just a bit longer,” she spoke kindly ( _impossibly so,_ he was sure of it), fingers brushing through the child’s messy hair. “You can keep playing for now, but don’t go too far, okay?”  

Kuja barely felt the children crowding past him, their laughter now distant and surreal.   

 _That voice…_   

It _was_ the voice that rang clearly in his memories—whispering words that he could not anchor precisely to a place or time. Cast adrift in the ocean of his mind, along with the other fragments that lurked under the surface.  

Kuja shook his head curtly, quickly growing more disturbed with his circumstances. He was lost, injured, without his magic, and now, seemingly suffering some bizarre form of déjà vu for this woman who was—by all accounts—a complete stranger. 

He felt the woman’s eyes come to rest on him again, an unspoken question clearly visible. He quickly cut in to speak, eager to break the grim silence that hung over them like a fine web.   

“I—apologize for troubling you, miss, but I was informed that you are this town’s healer.”   

He kept his tone even, unfazed. It took a degree of willfulness to make it so. “As you can see—” Eyes canted toward his limp arm. “I’m in need of whatever aid you can provide. If, of course, you are willing.”  

The creeping vines of irritation had found their way around his words, polite though he had intended them to be. The idea of practically begging for help did not sit well with him, but he had to concede internally that he had been left with little choice.  

In return, Terra’s expression of uneasiness seemed to renew with the sound of his voice, violet gaze dancing with uncertainty. Was it his condition that disturbed her? He would expect the sight of blood and injury to elicit such a reaction from a someone—particularly a woman—who was unaccustomed to these things, but this girl was supposed to be a healer. And from the looks of the damaged town, no stranger to war, either.  

“I wouldn’t turn away a traveler in need,” she finally answered. A tentative smile replaced the reluctance in her face, but the warmth of it did not quite make it through to her eyes. “Please, come in. I'll see what I can do.”  

Kuja followed her into the small home, squinting as his vision was momentarily thwarted by the shift in light. The scent of a warm meal filled the small space, the aromatic mixture of wood and spices unexpectedly enticing. With his immediate past wiped clean from his mind, it occurred to him that he very well could have been without food for a long while.  

“Here—down this way,” Terra explained hastily, gesturing to the right side of the room. To the left appeared to be an alcove of a kitchen, the iron stove emitting a noticeable warmth. The direction in which she led him was toward a passage that seemed to disappear down into a lower level.  

The pain in his forearm had become a dull aching as he carefully descended the stairs after her, a sudden jolt of surprise shooting down through it as the woman gently seized upon his shoulder. Only to aid him in the dim light of the stairway, surely—but the sensation of her grip disquieted him all the same. He swallowed thickly, trying to contain his distaste for their closeness as he followed her dutifully down the passageway.  

The room they emerged into looked to be a subterranean cellar of sorts, a few additional rooms branching off on the opposite side. It could have been an inn or tavern at one time, perhaps. Aside from an assortment of canvas-covered cargo crates in the far corners, a large table was the only noteworthy thing that resided in the main room.  

“I’ll be right back. Please—have a seat, and—” Her eyes flitted down to the arm that he kept close to his chest. “Try not to move your arm. I don’t like the look of that swelling.”  

She disappeared into one of the adjoining rooms, leaving him to stare balefully after her as he sat down in a wooden chair at the empty table. Her demeanor seemed oddly cold, he noted, something that felt _wrong_ to him for a reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Maybe this was a sign that her familiarity was merely a coincidence, a misfire of his clearly addled mind; an error he could correct when he got a proper hold on his memories.  

Regardless, Kuja had to admit to himself, he did need her assistance if he was going to have any hope of getting that far.   

Once his magic was restored, however, he had every intention to quit this dismal place immediately. Whether it was a matter of time—or of someone recognizing him—he was certain that the key to his fragmented past would not be found in this pitiful village of children and their caretakers.  

The light sound of shuffling boots hailed the woman’s return, drawing his gaze up from the patterned surface of the table. He frowned slightly, confused. A large satchel now hung from her shoulder, presumably what she had gone to fetch.  

He had been expecting something more along the lines of a staff. Healers tended to use them for better control over their channeling, particularly those who were less adept. A weak girl administering to a small village certainly fit that description. The rucksack that she carried more resembled something for use by an apothecary or chemist, someone skilled in manufacturing curatives.  

She set the bag on the table, a dull thud accompanying it, and pulled a chair up close to him. The mage eyed her warily, but her gaze seemed to be fixed on his injury.  

“Okay, let me have a look. Slowly, though,” she added quickly, one hand out in a beckoning motion. “I need to feel what exactly is broken before I can set it properly.”  

Kuja glared at her, growing ever more perturbed by her actions. What in the world was she talking about?  

“I’m—sorry,” he began, haughty tone anything but sorry. “But I was told you were a _healer_. A practitioner of white magics? Is that not correct?”  

The girl lifted her gaze up from his arm to meet his eyes, eyebrows knitting together in thought. If his rudeness bothered her, she showed no sign of it.  

“Magic?” Terra had withdrawn slightly now, back touching the chair. “Are you—feeling all right?”  

This question was one he had already become tired of hearing.  

“I’ve certainly been _better_ ,” he replied sharply, though he felt a twinge of regret almost immediately as surprise flickered through her expression.  

 _Wrong_ , he chided himself. Old habits, or at least what he suspected was an old habit. It was a counterproductive approach. He closed his eyes briefly, taking in a shallow breath.  

In the absence of power at his disposal, some measure of charm would have to do.  

“If you are _not_ , in fact, a white mage,” he started again, tone silky and calm, “might you be willing to supply me with some echo herbs? A trivial favor for an itinerant mage who finds himself silenced?”  

The confusion she had displayed took a subtle shift toward a sentiment he was more familiar with—suspicion. Gentle eyes narrowing the slightest amount, assessing, before darting down to the ground. 

“Where—where exactly is it that you’re travelling from?” 

 _Oh, no_ _no_ _no_ _._ This would _not_ do at all. 

“With all due respect, I don’t see that being any of your concern.” And yet he averted his own eyes now, he realized sourly. “If _you_ are unable to provide the services I seek, then perhaps—” 

“I don’t think _anyone_ is going to be able to help you with what you’re looking for. Not anymore.” The suspicion in her face had ebbed away now, returning to a quiet concern. “There haven’t been mages nor magic in this land for—close to half a year now.” 

_Inconceivable.  
_

The precarious dam of fortitude that been keeping him grounded shook and crumbled, giving way to a deep crack in his careful composure. A twitch of the eye, hiding a building crescendo of panic behind his gaze.

_Absolutely inconceivable!_

Few though his intact memories may have been, magic was ingrained so deeply in them that he had not even considered doubting it. Were even the most concrete aspects of his remembered identity the corrupt product of a damaged mind? 

The woman before him now a dim afterthought, Kuja was on his unsteady feet at once, headed for the passageway that returned to the surface. He had to get out— _leave_ —find _something_ that made sense to him. 

 _Perhaps that fleeting memory of death hadn’t been a delusion after all._ One step, two, and his reeling thoughts simply would not allow him the coordination needed for the ascent. Perhaps this _was_ yet his ordained punishment, crippled and without magic, his most basic and essential of faculties, in a world he couldn’t even remember. 

His legs were already threatening to fail him as a soft gasp reached his ears, a gentle but firm grip leaning him against the wall. Violet eyes filled with worry illuminated his blurring vision, honey blonde bangs in disarray around an angelic visage. 

A pity he that he was insane, he thought, smirking despite himself. This _Terra_ really was as lovely as the face in his memories-that-weren’t. 

It was a capricious thought that was soon to become urgently relevant as the warmth of a body pressed against his, willing him upright as his good arm was carefully wrapped around her shoulders. This proximity immediately reawakened fear in his mind; the brush of hair against his face and the curvature of a female form— 

“ _Okay_ ,” came the stern voice at his side. “ _You_ —are in _bad shape_. And I can’t help you if you don’t give me some answers first.” 

Kuja sighed in resignation, finally laughing derisively at the attempt to intimidate him.  

“You would think me insane, _dear lady_.” He caught her eyes briefly—intensely. A threat that might’ve meant something, once. “ …if you do not already.” 

Taking the opportunity to gain ground, Terra had begun to guide him once more to the chair. He found himself lacking the will to resist anymore. “I think you’re— _confused_ , at least. You certainly look like you’ve been through a lot.” 

She eased him down into the seat, and he was soon aware of her gaze tracing over the curling sway of his tail as the woman with the child had done. He swept it behind him, out of her sight, and gave her his most witheringly petulant glare as she took a seat beside him once more. 

“I—don’t mean to offend,” she began slowly, now reaching into her satchel. “And no, I don’t think you’re insane. But…is it possible that you suffered a blow to the head?” 

Her guess was as good as his, really. He watched, catlike and unblinking, as she removed a roll of cloth and wood from her bag. Was rebuffing her efforts to help truly in his best interest anymore? 

“I…cannot entirely recall,” he admitted at last, one silver lock falling into his downcast gaze. A tender touch had drawn his arm out between them now, feeling carefully along the inflamed skin. Kuja cringed as her fingers pressed down on a particularly sore spot.  

It occurred to him, then, that her question had been as much intended to distract him as elicit information. _Clever woman_. 

“Anything from before you were hurt? Before you came here?” She gently placed his arm straight on the corner of the table between them, unwinding the roll of gauzy cloth. “You _do_ remember being a mage—at least at some point, right?” 

His blue gaze drifted over the deft movements of her fingers—a unique dexterity that reminded him of a mage. It was an amusing thought that left a bitter aftertaste. 

“Yes,” he muttered. “And little more than that, I’m sorry to say.” 

An _almost-truth_ , the extent of what she deserved to hear right now. It would be unthinkable, he knew, to tell her anything of his faintly remembered history. Terra, that dissonant thread of her own name and some distant place that he could only associate with a dull, smoldering fury. He would have to recover more of the truth to that memory before he could even consider speaking a word of it. 

The glance that met his eyes was softened now, full of—his stomach roiled again— _sympathy_. She paused in her ministrations. “What about a name?” 

Kuja removed his gaze from hers, shaking his head a fraction. Some tiny voice in his head commanded it, a final measure of defense when everything else seemed to be stripped from him. 

 _No. Not yet._  

“I’m—” Her voice again, drawing him from his misery with a sad timbre of its own. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Why?” he quipped back, entirely serious despite the wry tone. “My memory is of no consequence to you, is it?” 

The woman’s youthful features twisted into a frown. “I suffered from amnesia once, too. And why _wouldn’t_ I feel for the pain of another?” 

Why indeed, he wondered. He didn’t make a habit of worrying for the welfare of others. Why should she worry for a stranger, much less one that had been rude to her? 

He held back an angry sigh. Yes, he had been rude to her. _Quite_ rude, in fact. She was a lady, after all, and he’d insulted her hospitality. Some part of him _wanted_ to care about that, while the other part wanted to banish her from his sight.  

He would have to settle—begrudgingly, as it were—for tacitly accepting her kindness. 

“It’s a fracture,” she stated abruptly, interrupting his attempts at brooding. Her soft touch was worrying over his skin again, sending a shudder through him that he couldn’t quite decipher anymore. "Fortunately—the bone isn’t severed. It’ll still take a few weeks to heal, though, once I bind it.” 

 _Weeks._  

Kuja leaned his head against the back of the chair. Did she have _any_ good news for him? It would be much more difficult for him to uncover anything meaningful about his past in such a state. And without magic, he stood little chance of traveling the surrounding wilderness anyway. 

Terra must have noticed his dejected sulking, because the sound of a soft giggle filled the silence. “Don’t look so miserable! I wasn’t planning on sending you on your way like this. We have plenty of spare room for a guest here, after all.” 

Still he said nothing. In the face of his personal crisis, her kindness felt nearly unclean in its sincerity. An undeserved kindness, because he knew he would’ve been perfectly willing to take what he needed without a second thought. 

“I'm sure you'll remember _something_ , soon enough,” she smiled, and he watched the warmth of that sweet smile reach through to her eyes for the first time since they had spoken. It was as beautiful as he would have expected, and he averted his eyes from her in something that was dangerously close to remorse. “So don't worry. I'll take care of you in the meantime.”

 _Take care of?_ He glared at her again, though it was with considerably more resentment than he truly felt. Being taken care of was for children and the weak. He was not a child, and if he had become weak enough to require such treatment, he would have been better off as dead as he’d remembered. To be taken care of was humiliating, degrading, the worst kind of pity, and yet— 

No one had ever taken care of him before. It was something he felt oddly sure of, even with his memories partially hidden from him. Had he wanted it to be that way? 

 _Maybe._ No…almost _certainly._  

His tail twitched, irritated with the thought, and unintentionally brushed up against the girl’s leg. She glanced down from the careful task of splinting his arm, giggling again as their eyes briefly met. If she thought this an odd thing (disgust, still, was all _he_ could feel toward it), she didn't act like it.

Kuja felt warmth in his face as he glanced away, rapidly curling his tail back around the leg of the chair. _Vulgar, traitorous thought!_ How _dare_ she make him think—make him _feel like_ — 

He closed his eyes, suppressing another long-suffering sigh.

_Like being taken care of was not the worst fate to have been dealt._


	3. Chapter 3

Like a thread that was pulled and pulled, forever unraveling, the details of his past life remained infuriatingly rooted in obscurity.  

The long afternoon hours had slipped by him in this futile pursuit, traveling the landscape of his memories in search of _something_ that would provide a spark. Each path seemed to lead to the same dead ends, where his ability to remember tapered off into little more than the vague mental image of a place, or the stumbled syllables of a name. Rapidly fading away, shrinking, like water through cupped hands. 

Still, he had managed to hold on to a faint hope that the silence and calm of the evening might present him with a better sense of clarity; a chance to tug that thread in precisely the right direction—spin it into a brilliant tapestry—and illuminate what had been lost to him.  

But as the sunlight that once poured through the window began to wane, Kuja found himself in precisely the same state of mind as when he had first opened his eyes on this unfamiliar world.  

A low groan of bitter frustration escaped the former mage. He leaned his usable arm on the surface of the small dressing table, nestling his face into his gloved palm. His reflection in the fractured mirror glared back at him through the shutter of his fingers, a mocking phantom that expressed equal disgust at his current circumstances. 

Where exactly did he go from here? Once his body had mended, he needed to have _some_ kind of plan prepared, in the event that his memories did not return by then. He had never had any intention of staying here for more time than was strictly necessary. There was only so long that his pride would permit him to suffer this wretched existence, living by the grace of a naïve woman’s charity. 

His eyes fell shut at this thought, a fresh wave of frustration welling up in the pit of his stomach.  

 _Terra._  

It _was_ by her grace that he found himself here, in the privacy and relative luxury of an amenable room. Her room, in fact—the most comfortably furnished among what she could offer. She had even allowed him this unbroken solitude that he now enjoyed, though not without first insisting that he partake of the meal she had prepared. 

Kuja let the arm that supported him fall limp atop the table, resting his chin on it in resignation. Being _taken care of_ was already wearing on him much more than he had expected. It wasn’t like being waited on by a servant, where the power dynamic would be clearly defined and unthreatening to his ego. These gestures of goodwill, freely given, were an unknown quantity—and he simply did not know what to do with them. 

As it would turn out, he did not know what to do with that sickeningly sweet smile of hers, either. 

If only her face wasn't lurking in the confines of his broken mind, he might have at least been able to find some peace behind closed eyes. The mystery of their connection did still trouble him deeply. A mystery that he simply could not escape, it seemed; even if her persistent ghost did not haunt him, he was still surrounded by the small reminders of her presence. 

Reminders like the whimsical likeness of a fluffy animal, crudely fashioned from buttons and cloth, that watched him from atop the vanity. 

Kuja closed his eyes tightly again, growling into his arm. If he still possessed the means to reduce this place to dust with the power of a dying star—he would do so only gladly. Destruction did have that wonderful, cleansing quality about it, making for a nearly universal solution to problems such as this one. Any threat to his ability to maintain control was well deserving of annihilation, and he suspected that the details of his forgotten life would attest to that. 

Pouting furiously, he settled for stuffing the doll in a drawer instead. 

This was a shallow victory, all things considered, but he couldn’t help but smirk gloatingly. At least he could ruminate a bit more peacefully now, without that disgusting, saccharine reminder of the girl and the questions she brought with her.  

His smile was just as soon to fade, however, as he glanced back at the mirror before him. With the brightness of the setting sun gleaming in from the window, illuminating his pitiable appearance more clearly, the grim realization finally dawned on him. Wallowing in the misery of losing both his memories and his magic, he had managed to neglect the one other asset that he held most dear to him. 

He scowled at the image in the mirror, running a finger experimentally over his cheek. An ugly bruise was now distinctly visible under his left eye, a deep purple that clashed violently against the pale shade of his skin. Lips utterly desiccated, and the bleeding traces of what once had been delicate paint along his lashes. 

And, most lamentably… _his beautiful hair_. His touch moved to brush lightly through it, only to find it thoroughly matted, stained with the evidence of dried blood—and were those _l_ _eaves_? 

He closed his eyes once more, draping his arm over them in an admittedly dramatic fashion. He ought never to have asked the universe if things could get any worse. _Only a fool asks if it can get worse._ This mockery of his former perfection served as a testament to that. 

Kuja sighed, turning away from his disgraceful reflection. At least he could sulk alone for a while longer. A disdainful gaze traced over his hands now, a mess of scrapes and split nails. _More good news, of course_ _—_  

A low mewling sound from behind him cut into his thoughts at once, startling him from his fit of self-pity.  

He whipped around, blue eyes drifting over the window, the empty bed—then frowned to himself. Surely he couldn’t be hallucinating as well, now, could he? 

This question was answered almost as soon as he asked it. Another soft mewl, and a pair of bright golden eyes emerged from beneath the bed. The shape of a furry black head followed it, pointed ears canting forward in alert interest. 

 _A cat._ Kuja blinked, at once annoyed and bewildered. He had been taken by surprise by _a cat_. 

“What?” He glared at the animal, smirking snidely. “Have I intruded upon your territory?” 

The creature took a few careful steps toward him, tail straightening behind it in concentration. It seemed to be focusing on something directly ahead of it—Kuja followed its gaze toward his own gently swaying tail where it rested at his feet. _Hmph_ _._  

“Well, that’s a shame,” he sniffed. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not fond of sharing.” 

Apparently unfazed, the cat lowered itself into a crouch. Still staring intently at the slight twitch of his tail, yellow gaze tracing the hypnotic movement. The owner of the tail in question lashed it smoothly away as the cat pounced, leaving it to land in an undignified heap on its belly. 

“Oh, _bravo._ What a formidable predator you are!” He couldn’t quite stop himself from giggling at this. Taunting an animal _was_ low, but the opportunity to lord over a weaker being was something he direly needed at the moment. 

The cat rolled onto its back now, tiny paws kicking playfully at the air. Kuja watched coldly as it batted at the tip of his tail, clearly unthreatened by the man that occupied its domain. 

So, even _this_ pathetic creature saw no reason to fear him? The icy blue of his gaze narrowed, the anger he had left to simmer now rising back to the surface. Had he _really_ fallen this far, in the absence of his power?  

Shifting back onto its feet, the creature leapt gracefully up to stand upon the vanity before him. It then assessed him with a cursory glance before sitting down on its hind legs, bringing its forepaw to its muzzle to groom lazily. 

Yes _._ Even _this_ pathetic creature saw no threat in him.  

The fingers of his left hand twitched, an unfathomably familiar lust clouding his mind. Though he might have lost the convenient outlet of violence that magic afforded him, extinguishing the life from this worthless animal would be trivial nonetheless. Simply a matter of seizing its fragile throat, _squeezing_ — 

As if to challenge this unspoken threat, the cat hopped neatly into his lap. Purring now, with eyes full of a merrily ignorant trust as it curled its tail around its front paws. 

For a moment, Kuja could only stare at it, very nearly dumbfounded. This animal was… _fond_ of him? The idea seemed almost laughable. If it thought that he would do no harm to it, it was either incredibly stupid, or …

 _Ugh._  

Or it was _right_. 

He brought his hand to his face, the lingering wisps of fury subsiding into a more manageable sensation of malcontent. 

“ _Fine._ I will _tolerate_ your presence for now,” he told the creature harshly, lifting it up from his lap with one careful movement that favored his good arm. He made sure to match its intense golden gaze with a glare of his own. “But you will _keep your distance_ from me or suffer the consequences. Understood?” 

This odd staring contest continued for a moment, and then—a languid _meow._  

“…Close enough, I suppose.” 

The soft laugh that then followed, however, did _not_ belong to the cat. 

“Did I—interrupt something?” 

Kuja nearly dropped the animal in surprise, blood quickly draining from his face. A soft gaze that danced with amusement was watching him from the doorway. 

“Oh, um. I’m sorry.” Unfailingly polite, Terra now covered her mouth with her hand to hide another giggle. “I probably should have knocked.” 

Placing the cat gingerly back on the vanity, he wondered _how_ exactly one could save face from such a clearly ridiculous scene. He briefly imagined her expression, were he to tell her the truth of it— _if only you knew how lucky your darling pet is to be alive!_  

“This belongs to you, I presume?” he asked instead, trying to sound bored. “I would have appreciated some _warning_.” 

The door opened wider with a creak as Terra entered more fully into the room. The cat jumped from its perch to greet its mistress, merrily rubbing its body against her leg. She smiled warmly at it and gathered it in her arms. 

“Were you being a nuisance?” she whispered into its neck, tone hinting at mock reprimand. Then, to her clearly unamused guest, she added with a smile, “I hope she didn’t scare you. I didn’t realize she had been hiding in here!” 

Kuja rolled his eyes, leaning his head on his hand. He found himself equally annoyed at the fact that she would, first of all, assume a cat could startle him—and, worse still, that it actually _had_ done so. 

“Don’t be absurd,” he muttered in response, discreetly roaming his gaze over her once again. He had caught sight of a scabbard pinned to the curve of her hip, an elegantly curved blade hanging down past the hem of her short dress.  

 _Interesting._ This soft-spoken girl was trained in the use of a sword? He certainly wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at her. 

“Pardon my rudeness,” Kuja began carefully, the coldness of his sarcasm faltering ever so slightly. “But—I would have to guess that you didn’t come in here just to collect your pet.”  

Violet eyes rose to meet his, the same smile on her lips perfectly unchanged as she cradled the cat affectionately. “I just wanted to let you know before I left—that I’m headed to the marshlands, before the sun goes down. I’ll need pearl moss for the poultice I had in mind.” 

He had leaned forward in the seat now, staring the woman down with a skeptical frown. A poultice. So, she thought to prepare something to ease his pain...

Trailing his fingers through his disheveled hair in irritation, he inhaled shortly. It seemed that the debt he owed to this girl grew greater by the hour.

“Then—allow me to accompany you.” 


	4. Chapter 4

The wind had begun to pick up as the sun inched toward the horizon, softly bending the tall grass and wildflowers that surrounded the riverbank. Laundry hung from a clothes line beside the rocky shore, faded fabrics in greens and tans that fluttered with the breeze. Apart from the occasional cry of a circling hawk and the low churning of the water, the world had fallen silent with the onset of dusk.

Idling against the outer wall of the nearby stable, Kuja surveyed the scene with the same disdain that he had felt upon awakening not too far from where he now stood. The serene rural atmosphere of the village and the wilderness it resided in might have been charming to the unwashed masses, but he could sense without remembering that he must have been a man of luxury. Being devoured by insects while freezing to death ranked relatively low in terms of comfortable living, and as such he had been thoroughly proven wrong in thinking that he looked worse than he felt. 

His misery seemed to go unnoticed by his nearby companion, whose attention was focused on preparing her mount for their short journey. Humming contentedly, Terra had saddled the large yellow bird and was now carefully fitting its bridle with a practiced ease. 

“He’s _perfectly safe_ to ride,” she called to him again, though she did not look up from her task. “Kupo was the runt of his clutch. Locke says he’s the gentlest chocobo you could find.” 

Kuja kept his calm gaze on the sunlight glancing off the water, more than happy to ignore her attempts at coaxing. Stonewalling happened to come quite naturally to him. 

“We wouldn’t make it back before dark without him.” She secured the bridle tightly, giving the bird a fond scratch above its beak. It returned the gesture with an affectionate chortle, stubby wings spreading as it leaned into its master's touch. “I can handle a few monsters, but the things that come out at night can be…a bit of a problem.”  

This caused him to frown, leaning more heavily against the wooden structure as he pulled his injured arm closer. A well-intentioned sentiment, no doubt, but a reminder nonetheless that he now lacked the power to defend himself and required her protection. It was salt on a wound that had already begun to fester. 

Even from the short distance between them, he could hear her sigh dramatically now as she stepped back from the chocobo. 

“You _did_ promise you would come with me,” she finally tried, shooting him a pointed glare as she removed a pack from the saddle. Her tone was not aggressive, but decidedly stern. One that he had already heard her use on a misbehaving child. 

He chewed on the inside of his lip, composure quickly becoming ruffled. This subtle gesture of dominance was more of an annoyance than a threat, but it did not sit well with him all the same. _So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?_  

He kept his silence for a moment longer as he raised his eyes to meet her stare with an unimpressed glower. Then—he merely blinked ruefully, shrugging.  

“I _promised_ nothing. And even if I had, _you_ never laid out the terms—that I join you on that filthy animal—and therefore any such agreement is forfeit.” 

“I—” Terra began, but her expression of fortitude soon became one of faint exasperation as he arched an eyebrow challengingly. She closed the small gap between them, undeterred, and offered him a diplomatic smile. “I won’t force you, if you don’t want to. I guess I was just looking forward to some company this time. It’s too dangerous for the children to join me when I gather herbs.” 

Tail twitching slightly with a curiosity that his dispassionate glare concealed, Kuja watched as she hefted the saddle bag on top of a feed barrel next to him. He quickly stilled its movements as she rummaged around in the sack—he had grown so accustomed to hiding the unsightly feature that it was too easy to forget that it would speak for him more than he preferred. 

What significance was attached to it—what had caused such a hatred that transcended while so much more of his past remained muddled? The thought led back to the same place that he repeatedly found himself now, bitter and inescapable in its persistence. All of it was lost in the patchwork of emotions and disjointed memories that littered his broken mind. 

He shook his head, sweeping a few strands of silver from his view. Searching for any distraction from his fruitless brooding, his keen gaze wandered back to the girl before him. A halo of light golden hair swayed around her shadowed features as she drew a swath of fabric from the bag, the unusual purple shade of her eyes bright in the waning sunlight. Given the otherwise drab nature of the place, her beauty did at least provide something pleasant to look at in contrast. 

The unbidden thought made his tail twitch again _—_ betraying its owner all too eagerly _—_ and he scowled at the ground with every drop of arrogant indignation that his wounded ego had left. _In a purely aesthetic sense, of course._  

“You would have me believe that you _want_ my company?” Kuja snorted at last, trading his miffed frown for a teasing smirk. “I don’t imagine that my presence has brightened your day thus far.” 

There was little point in being coy about it, he supposed. It was true that he had acted brusque toward her—and with fairly good reason, considering his sorry condition. Being cordial was his preferred tactic, if only to exploit what he could from others, but Terra had offered him the benefits of a polite approach without being afforded any signs of goodwill for her efforts. 

He couldn't help but roll his eyes as he contemplated it. She truly was every bit the naïve, open-hearted girl that he’d pinned her for from the start. 

The dimples in her cheeks became obvious as she grinned wryly at his chiding, joined by a soft laugh. “I think I can forgive you the bad attitude, under the circumstances. Being injured certainly isn’t fun, but losing your memory can feel—almost maddening, at times.” 

She had now unfurled the piece of fabric out before her, revealing it to be a flowing cape. His gaze roamed over it, intrigued, as she fastened it at her throat. The pale blue ended in a delicate purple fringe, providing an interesting complement to the rest of her ensemble—a short cream-colored dress, trimmed in gold, with sheer spotted stockings and a wreath of colorful sashes bunched at the waist. 

A delightfully eccentric fashion sense? He swiped a thumb over his lips, hiding a smile. Now _that_ was something he could appreciate.  

“To be honest, I just thought this might be a good chance to get acquainted,” she continued, removing the ribbon that had held her blonde curls loosely behind her. With a bit of fiddling, she had it tied back tightly again, leaving only a few wispy bangs free. “Mobliz isn't nearly big enough for us not to see a lot of each other, so we might as well make the best of it. Not to mention—maybe I can help you remember something, if you’re willing to trust me a little.” 

Kuja closed his eyes briefly, considering her words. It _was_ true that he had hoped to glean more information from her about his current situation. Her familiarity to him had to hold some significance, and it was a question unlikely to be settled without knowing more about her. And then—the potential opportunity to see her in action with that blade, a curiosity that had truthfully been the impetus of his offer to join her on this outing. 

And, if doing so would appease her, too—well, it never hurt to come to a mutually beneficial agreement, now, did it? 

Her imploring gaze remained on him as he opened his eyes again, waving his good arm to the side in a dismissive gesture. “All right. There is _some_ merit in your argument. Enough that I could consider enduring your crude means of transport—if only just this once.” 

“Perfect!” The woman’s smile seemed to light up anew with his concession. She dove back into her pack, withdrawing a substantial piece of black fabric this time. “I had wanted to give this to you earlier, but there were so many distractions with the laundry, and preparing supper, and the littlest ones are _always_ getting into some kind of trouble—ah—” 

Kuja rolled his eyes again. She was oddly excitable for someone as busy as she claimed to be. 

“It’s a cloak—a riding cloak, to be exact,” she explained more quietly. She held the item up, seemingly assessing his expression for some form of approval. He simply continued to stare at her, offering no such thing. “I know it's not much, but the laundry hasn’t finished drying yet, and you could really use something more—” 

Her violet eyes traveled over what remained of his own attire, which admittedly left little to the imagination even before whatever ordeal had befallen him. The tone of her voice made it clear that she was more aware of this fact than she had previously let on. 

“—appropriate for the weather,” she finished, and he knew when her hand came to her mouth that she must be covering an entirely too demure smile. The subject already seemed to have brought out a hint of color in her face, and Kuja narrowed his eyes slightly at the obvious insinuation about his choice of dress. 

“My dear Terra—do you make a habit of insulting your guests, or…” He pushed his unruly hair behind him, indulging a satisfied grin at the way her own smile quickly became abashed. “Should I be flattered to have caught your attention in such a way?” 

“That is _n_ _ot_ what I meant!” she protested at once, an arm going to her hip. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” 

Another smirk. “Oh, of course.” 

She rolled her eyes now, dangling the cloak out before her again. “So is that a yes or a no, then? Because if it's a _no_ , I don't want to hear any complaining about being cold.” 

 _And she’s back to the mothering act again._ He glanced off to the side, an unintentional gesture of his disaffection. _Splendid._   

Terra seemed to take this as some form of surrender, because he soon felt her presence moving close to him. The voice that followed had become soft, perhaps sensing that his stubbornness toward her gestures of care was an attempt to maintain control. 

“I can help you—I mean, if you'll let me. If that’s the reason you’re being so difficult…you don’t need to feel bad about me helping you.”  

His apprehensive gaze darted up to meet hers, predictably finding only a painfully genuine expression that hid nothing about her intentions. Her gentle grip closed on his upper arm, causing his body to tense immediately. She was no different than her accursed cat, he decided—foolishly assuming he was as tender as his delicate appearance suggested.  

Nothing about his shrouded memories gave him cause to believe he was capable of anything but malice, an emotion that his current predicament had already begun to reawaken. Had he still the capacity for magic, she might well be treading on dangerous ground, but— 

He sighed, brushing his hand over hers testily. What he might do under different circumstances mattered very little now. “I’ll thank you not to touch me needlessly,” he muttered. “Just—do whatever it is you’re meaning to and let’s be on our way.” 

This seemed to be the answer she wanted to hear, because the smile quickly returned to her face. A few wordless moments passed as she carefully wrapped the cloak about him, taking care to limit stress on his injured arm. It wasn’t as unendurable as he would have expected the prolonged contact to be, though he found himself furiously cursing her influence all over again as her light touch arranged the collar about his throat. 

“There!” Terra smiled at this minor feat, making a motion as if to fuss with the garment again. The plainly hostile glare he shot at her advised against it. “Well, that's good enough, anyway.” 

Still eyeing her warily, he did not dare to pull the fabric tighter around himself until she briefly turned from him, seizing upon the reins of her mount that waited close by. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to begrudge her these favors, and the warmth that seeped into his skin now made for an unwelcome reminder. 

“It’ll be a smooth ride—I promise,” she assured again, her expectant gaze falling on him as her chocobo lowered itself into a crouch. “You’ll, um—have to hold on tight, though…” 

With one fluid motion, she swung herself neatly onto the bird’s back, shifting sidesaddle to face him. Kuja had to smile at this—an obvious indication that she thought he may have reconsidered joining her. He certainly was still at liberty to do just that, if he so desired.

_But …_

He shook his head shortly. There wouldn’t be much fun in that, would there? He’d already grown so tired of wrestling with his own fragmented memories. Perhaps his efforts would be better spent looking outward for the answers.

So he sauntered over to the prone beast, gently swiping aside the hand that was offered to him. Almost as easily as Terra had, he seated himself on the chocobo and— 

Stifled a discomforted exhale, because this would be the less palatable part of the journey. Very hesitantly, he circled his good arm around her waist, feeling the satin texture of the sashes that lined it teasing at his fingertips. The approving glance that she stole over her shoulder was warm—too warm. Nearly as warm as the cloak, or the heat of her body against his own.  

He cast his gaze away, frowning again, and the sweet laughter that filled the air made him quite positive that he hated her.


	5. Chapter 5

“Relax. He isn’t going anywhere.” 

Her voice carried over from up ahead, light and pleasant. A look of cagey indifference quickly returned to his face as he whipped his head around to her, lowering it slightly with suspicion. How was it, Kuja wondered, that she knew of the glances he kept throwing back to the bird off in the distance?  

Obviously, she was keener of an observer than he had presumed. Motherly intuition, perhaps—and he resented the implications of that thought all over again. He could only stare scathingly at her back, unblinking, as the sound of branches and leafage crackling beneath their steps filled the crisp evening air. 

“What—and I suppose you asked it _nicely_ to wait for our return?” he scoffed in reply, carefully avoiding a fallen bough as he hastened to reduce their distance. “Because I can assure you it _will_ be gone by the time—” 

Terra halted in her steps, winning his silence with the amused smile that colored her face when she turned around. The warmth that he felt rush to his own flustered visage was made of irritation and a certain kind of self-consciousness that she had no right to make him feel so consistently. 

“You still don’t trust me, do you?” The edge of a laugh lifted her words up, and he steeled his gaze upon her that much more venomously. “Or—have I given you reason to believe that I don’t know what I’m doing?” 

She was teasing him, of course. Her comfort with doing so was quickly becoming unsettling. His fingers tightened around the cloak that he clutched to his chest, distinctly unamused. 

Terra seemed to detect the subtle shift in his demeanor, because the laughter deserted her expression for something closer to patient understanding. “I always leave Kupo to range when I come out here,” she explained now. “It’s safer for him to be able to escape if something threatens him. But I’ve trained him to return to that tree—and he always does. You don’t need to fret over it. I promise.” 

Kuja glanced up at her last words, spoken with a gentle reassurance once again. The thought occurred to him that he preferred the teasing over her vexing concern, and he granted her a cold shrug in return as he caught up with her. 

The woods were now dense enough to require the rest of the journey to be taken on foot. As they ventured deeper into the thicket of trees, it had become clear that the land had seen some unknown catastrophe. Fire, it seemed, as the old growth that curled around them was barren and decayed. Only the boggy terrain of the forest floor showed signs of vibrant life, left green and grassy by a summer past. 

Sensing her gaze on him again after a few minutes of quiet travel, he dared to tilt his own icy stare toward her. It was meant to be skeptical, but the feeling behind it was tinged with an unwelcome regret. 

“I—apologize for questioning your judgement. It was not my intention to offend you.”  

It sounded too sincere, and the way her violet eyes widened the slightest amount told him as much. He lowered his own gaze again, frustrated—trying to salvage the sentiment into something more familiar to him.  

“I’m not accustomed to… _this_ ,” he admitted more quietly, shaking his head. “Being without magic. It is an insufferable vulnerability. Even if I can’t say for certain that what I remember is real—” 

“It’s all right. Really!” 

Peering up at her again, the expression she wore now was as serious as it ever had been. “Because—I do believe you, remember? And...well. I know exactly what you’re feeling, too.” 

The silence stretched out momentarily. She turned her face outward, surveying the scarred landscape around them. 

“When magic vanished from this world, I lost my ability to use it,” she continued, an uncharacteristic sadness creeping in. “I had only just begun to make it my own. So, sometimes, I can’t help wishing that I still had that power. To be able to protect those that I care about, should I need to—that’s what my magic was always meant for.” 

With her attention averted, he afforded himself a slightly disarmed stare.  

His instincts toward her disposition had been correct after all. She had been a mage. Even through the use of mundane herbs and salves, her propensity for healing was obvious to see. A former white mage, with little doubt. 

“And what about you?” Terra spoke up again, cutting into his thoughts abruptly. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is. The ability to use magic is very unusual. Do you remember what kind you practiced?” 

He couldn’t help laughing snidely at the question. “Nothing so noble as what you’ve described, I’m afraid.” 

The sensation of her fingers brushing against his own exposed hand startled him, casting his gaze at once in her direction. He swallowed, disconcerted by the tender gesture. “I—didn’t mean to pry, if it’s something you’d rather not talk about.” 

He focused his attention to the murky ground below them, unflinching at the hand that now closed around his. “The magic that I was possessed of was intended for utter destruction. Nothing more, nothing less.” 

Her grip should have disappeared at his words. Instead, he felt it tighten. 

“I recall little of the particulars, but I think—” A pause, and he stole a reluctant glance up at the woman beside him. The hint of sorrow in her face was a cruel contrast to the emptiness he felt toward the subject. “I think I was—a weapon.” 

Without acknowledgement, they had stopped their easy stroll in the midst of the conversation. In the face of her sadness, he attempted a smile—the easy guise of unaffected confidence that he favored so dearly. 

“You needn’t look so grim, Terra. I’m quite certain that I enjoyed every moment of it.” He shrugged again, smile unintentionally vanishing, and carefully brushed a wisp of silver from his eyes. “As such, I would expect it’s in everyone’s best interest that I no longer wield such a power.” 

That intense violet gaze remained on him, unwavering as she moved closer. The reminder of her hand around his came in the form of a thumb brushing gently against his palm. 

And then, unbelievably—she smiled. It was not a smile of joy. 

“Then—I think you’re in good company,” she spoke softly, eyes cast downward. “My path was not so different from yours.” 

An injustice, really, that she should look so lovely even with a face painted in despair. He cursed the state of his injured arm in that instant. She cleverly held the other hostage in her grasp and left him with no means to capture the loose strand of gold at her cheek.  

He quickly caught himself in the thought—indulgent and foreign as it was—and reclaimed his hand. The latent feeling of panic that it provoked was not entirely dispelled with a flick of his tail. 

“I _sincerely_ doubt that,” Kuja replied at last, rolling his eyes with lingering annoyance. “You’ve the look of an angel and the temperament to match. What could you _possibly_ have—” 

“Looks aren’t what makes a mage dangerous.” A touch of force clung to her words, fingers brushing at the sashes at her waist. “But—you already know that, don’t you?” 

 _Touché._   

He turned away from her, bitterly silent in his own hypocrisy. She was cleverer by half than he had given her credit for. 

“I told you that magic is uncommon in this land,” Terra began again, her voice already softened. “So, you see—I was one of few humans born with the power to use it. Because I was not—truly human. And I get the sense that you aren’t, either.” 

The silver shape of his tail swayed gently under her gaze. He did not reply. 

“Is there anything else you do remember?” The sound of her shuffling boots let him know that she had shifted her weight, but his eyes remained on the ground. “About where you came from?” 

Humorlessly, he smirked at this. Did his secret much matter, now? 

“I could give you a name, but it would mean little to you.” He started off into a leisurely stride again, shaking his head. “And you would not believe me, anyway.” 

A small sound of protest drifted over from behind him as she dashed to catch up. “Well—try me,” she returned insistently. “Perhaps I’ve—” 

Her sentence came to an abrupt end as a savage snarl erupted from the thick brush, tearing through the peaceful silence of the twilight. The sound was soon joined by the din of cracking branches as a man-sized shape emerged into the light of the fading sun that lanced through the thin canopy overhead. A formidable canine, head lowered to strike as its lips pulled back on gleaming fangs. 

It was only out of a vague reflex that Kuja found himself summoning the will for a decimating volley of flame—the immediate realization left him feeling more irritation than rightful fear. He took a careful step back, throwing a moody glare at his companion beside him. 

“I really do hope that blade isn’t just for show,” he muttered urgently in her direction, though she had already moved to free it with the same reflex he had demonstrated toward his absent magic. “I’ll take the left—I trust you know what to do?” 

Her short nod was confirmation. As the beast crouched to spring, he moved easily from the path of its wild lunge, leaving the creature to land gracelessly with its flank exposed. Terra seized the opportunity without hesitation, driving one swift thrust through its belly. A terrible howl of agony followed the attack, dark blood rapidly blossoming from the wound as she withdrew her blade. 

As the wolf fell dead between them, the laugh that escaped him was nothing short of giddy. Yes—he’d certainly misjudged her looks. 

“A fine performance,” he snickered, giving the corpse a tentative nudge with his boot. It never hurt to be certain, before gloating. “The ability to act quickly is everything in battle. You didn't disappoint.” 

Despite his own satisfaction with the outcome, her expression remained troubled. She shook her head, diving into a crouch to clean her blade on the damp grass.  

“That could have been a disaster,” she sighed, keeping to a kneel as she caught her breath for a moment. “I haven’t seen anything that big out here before—not at this hour. Their numbers must be growing again.” 

“Not a fan of reveling in victory, then, I take it?” Unthinking, he offered her a hand up. She examined his coy smirk almost warily before accepting the help. 

“Ending a life is always a cause for some sadness,” Terra replied mildly, one hand brushing at a spot of blood that now marred her dress. “I can’t say I enjoy it. But I should’ve been paying more attention—it was—after _you_. It …could have killed you. Easily.” 

Kuja rolled his eyes, unmoved by the suggestion. “On the contrary, you could do with worrying a bit _less_ on behalf of others. It will fade your beauty prematurely.” 

This returned a reluctant smile to her face, bright in the encroaching darkness. He was not quite willing to return the gesture and settled for a bored sigh. “The destination you had in mind—I hope it isn’t much further. I expect night will fall within the hour.” 

“Past that tree,” she affirmed, gesturing to a point a short distance ahead. “Pearl moss is easiest to find there. We’ll be well on our way before dark.” 

The silence closed in again as their excursion drew to its end, a small series of pools beneath an ancient tree. She was quick to collect what she needed as the light waned, two handfuls of a purplish muck that lined the murky water. Once it was securely stowed away in her rucksack, they returned in the direction that had led them there. 

When they approached the ridge where her chocobo awaited them, Kuja finally spoke again. 

“Terra,” he stated softly, drawing her curious gaze back to him. “It was called Terra. The place that I came from.” 

If she thought it a quaint coincidence, her calm expression did not give it away. “I’ve—never heard of such a place. Not in this world.” 

He lowered his head, unsurprised. Nothing in this world was familiar to him—nothing that hinted at even the faintest glimmer of recollection. Except— 

Something stirred in him, something equally made of pain and an infuriating longing. 

 _Except her._  

“I've answered your question,” he spoke evenly, and he watched her tongue swipe over her lower lip nervously under the heat of his gaze. “You—you _must_ tell me something in return, and be truthful about it.” 

Her eyes flitted back to the ground, cryptic. It made him feel very uneasy in a way that he could not approximate to words. 

“I remember you— _something_ about you. Your face. Your name.” He turned away, willing himself to go on. It was imperative, to ask this—it had to be done. “Tell me. _Have we met?”_

His eyes rose to meet hers, and the sad smile that she wore then struck as true as her blade. 

“I’m sorry.”


	6. Chapter 6

In a place beyond the grasp of time, snow fell steadily on a silent land woven from illusion. 

The figure of a man stood amidst the windblown drift. Solitary in the vast expanse of an endless winter, he was untouched by cold despite the clinging petals of white on a mane of silver. As with everything else in this world made of fragmented memories, the morose weather was a shallow imitation that lacked its essence. 

The fire consuming the wreckage that had once been the town of Narshe was, by contrast, quite real.  

As real as the rage that gave it form, and the faintly trembling hand that called it forth. The stinging heat of tears were a mocking reminder of another time, distant but for in memory, when his fate laid bare had first left him a sobbing mess. He had touched his face then, shocked and horrified—for never once, in a life of perfect apathy, had he been moved in such a way. 

And of all the sweet lies he had spun in that life, in the end, it was his own treacherous heart that still would not be deceived. 

He had failed to give truth to a comforting lie, one of confidence—of resolve to meet his end once more with dignity. With destiny's final battle nigh at hand, he again found himself an unwilling audience to his own demise. In isolation, the graceful facade crumbled to dust at the feet of uncertainty. 

If the gods were witness to this display of despair turned to vain fury, he had the unique honor of being pitied by neither harmony nor chaos.  

The errant thought brought a mirthless smirk to his face. It did, after all, make for good theater. Death—the timeless servant of drama, which he had so blithely fancied himself exempt from. The irony that he should be restored to life here—as a vapid puppet yet again, an instrument of war—was an unfathomable insult to the remaining shreds of pride that he stubbornly sheltered in contempt. 

Hatred was comfortable, easy, and familiar. It had always sustained him, a friend that asked only for endless destruction in exchange for its company. But the stifled cry that he now refused to give voice to was not one of hatred, nor even of simple anger, because _really,_ truthfully— 

He was so very, very afraid.  

And he knew, with perfect clarity, that laying waste to this entire fraudulent world would not free him of that most dreadful of emotions. Destroying Terra, nearly destroying all of creation, had not done so.  

He was still broken—had been broken all along. A flawed vessel that would not outlive its usefulness. He closed his eyes and wondered, as he had before, if a release from fear was a worthy exchange for embracing oblivion. 

It was the unmistakable sound of a rift opening, then, that made his blood freeze where the falling snow could not. 

In an instant he summoned a flurry of burning orbs to surround him, reeling around to face whatever being dared to disrupt him in his misery. Whose warrior it was mattered not. He welcomed the thought of a skirmish with the loathsome clown, or that armored shadow of his former master, or— 

“Kuja?” 

Blue eyes hardened in disdain as the portal revealed none other than his infuriatingly persistent brother.  

The magic that engulfed him flared and expanded—a warning. He longed for nothing more than to hear him speak his name in anger at that moment. An excuse to reprise the role of the monster he so dearly wanted to be. It wasn’t _fair_ —the way the concern in that voice always threatened to deny him the evils that were his only legacy. 

What he got instead was a mildly annoyed sigh as Zidane closed the scant distance between them, reluctantly drawing his daggers. He kept them idle at his sides as he moved to stand a few paces from the swirling maelstrom, simultaneously calling his bluff and signaling a tentative trust. 

“Oh, _shit_ ,” the younger man spoke softly, grim realization finally dawning in his typically easy-going expression. “You’re aren’t—are you crying?” 

With one powerful hum, the protective aura of flames swelled and dissipated. In the span of mere seconds, Kuja made the very painful decision to sacrifice his lovely robes on behalf of his dignity. He dragged his arm furiously over his reddened face and turned away. 

“I suppose privacy has become a luxury for me these days, hasn’t it?” he managed spitefully, examining his tear-stained sleeve with renewed indignation. “And—no. I was not _crying_.” 

A firm grip closed on his arm, and he suppressed a shudder at the sudden contact. The glare that he threw the offending hand did not, however, dissuade Zidane. Did it ever? 

“You really think I don’t know what’s going on in your annoyingly pretty head right now?” His brother’s gaze was on the blood-red sky, still smoky with the evidence of his rage. “You’re terrified of going back. I _know_ you are. So does Terra.” 

He shook his head, sighing again when Kuja pointedly shifted out of his grasp.  

“I should’ve suspected as much,” the mage shot back haughtily, folding his arms in petulant protest. “Did you come here thinking you'd convince me where she could not?” 

“Well, it was more like I wanted to kick your ass for making a girl cry,” Zidane admitted, tone making it very clear that he was still considering it. “But—” 

He was cut off with an irritated growl, immediately followed by the eruption of a nearby tree in flames. 

“Oh, for the love of—!” Kuja closed his fingers on empty air, eyes darkening with muted anger. “I never asked for her pity _or_ her fanciful notions of defying fate! If she wants to waste her time on such things, it is her choice to do so, but I will not be made responsible for her tears.” 

“If I didn't know any better, I might think you actually cared about her feelings or something.” The thief had his arms folded languidly behind his head now, sky blue eyes dancing with a certain slyness. “And what do you mean, defying fate? Kinda seems like we're all defying fate just by, y'know, being here.” 

“You know precisely what I mean,” he returned sharply. Of course Zidane knew, of all people—it was a cruel farce to pretend otherwise, and it aggravated his already raw temper. “Whether it is in our world or another, my own fate has already been spoken for. My time will _always_ be short. Or did you neglect to mention that part of the tale?” 

The lapse of silence suggested that the accusation had hit its mark, quickly becoming more apparent when his brother glanced down at the ground.  

“Maybe that's true.” His voice was uncharacteristically solemn now, and he shook some lingering snow from his messy blonde hair in a tell of discomfort. “But you don't know that, either. And you do know exactly what'll happen when we go back.” 

Kuja snorted at this, darkly amused. It was acknowledgement enough, and so his brother continued. 

“Would you at least think about it?” he tried again. “Even if it's just to make someone else happy for once? That's what you wanted, isn't it? A chance for things to be different? To live a little?” 

“I _want_ to be left alone, Zidane.”  

Silver feathers lifted gently with a phantom breeze. He was looking at the sky, but his tone was more distant than the drifting storm clouds. 

“To accept the inevitable, this time. It would be my greatest triumph.” 

“Going out of your way to help people is a pretty strange way of saying you want to be left alone,” the younger man pointed out carefully, earning a scathing look from his brother. “And it doesn’t look to me like you’re having much luck with accepting anything, either.” 

His gaze wandered meaningfully to the ruined town. It was an irrefutable point, and Kuja brought a hand to his hair in poorly concealed agitation. 

“You _did_ bring this on yourself, y'know. You’re the reason Terra will leave this world with her mind and her freedom.” The hint of teasing that had returned to his voice was almost caustic, and the midnight blue eyes that rounded on him at once only confirmed this fact. “You aren’t dumb enough to think girls don’t like being rescued, right? And she wants to save you, too. Why can’t you just accept _that_?” 

It was the wrong thing to say, and this was clear to see in the instant that Kuja’s expression became deadly vacant once more. A weak aura of violet formed about him, deceptively beautiful with the promise of annihilation. Though it was held back in a miraculous feat of control, Zidane still took a scrambling step back, for he knew well what he was looking at. 

“She _can’t_ save me,” came the impossibly calm response, “any more than you could. Is that so difficult to understand?” 

“But you don’t even want to try! What is it that you’re so afraid of?” 

The thief had drawn his daggers again, but he did not move with the intention of a fight. He was angry, but it was not the kind of anger that Kuja had wanted from him. 

“You know what I think?” he began again, ignoring the threat of heat that reached his skin. “You’re not afraid of dying. Not anymore.” 

The sky glittered, bright and violent with energy. An unspoken challenge for him to finish, and finish he would.

_“You’re afraid of living.”_

In the distance, a shower of light exploded, cleansing the snowy forests with fire. There was no satisfaction in it this time, and the bitter laugh that escaped him was as hollow as the soul behind it. 

“Then so be it.” 

* * *

Under the darkness of a different sky, the war rushed toward its finale. 

The battlefield was made of chaos—time was short. The mighty dragon would rise soon, and all would be as it was before. 

“And what if that little idea of yours were to succeed?” 

Violet eyes turned to him, startled. The world below them was bathed in the light of fire, illuminating the hint of hopefulness in her face. 

“You’ve changed your mind, then?” 

He turned away, expression remaining stubbornly closed. The question went unanswered. 

“This world of yours is vast, surely.” His shrug was aimed toward indifference, but the faint wavering in his voice betrayed indecision. “Would I ever find you?” 

It was horrifyingly earnest—he cringed internally. Cursed the thought of her unbidden gratitude and the terrifying temptation of her fingers in his hair. Two fractured souls could never hope to amount to a whole. 

“Would we even remember this place?” he asked harshly now, and he was caught hopelessly between the desire to remember and forget. It turned his next words to a pitiful murmur. “Would you—remember me?”

She smiled just the same, and he wondered if the light in her eyes was as much an illusion as the rest of the world around them. 

“I could never forget.”


	7. Chapter 7

The flame of a single candle flickered dimly, casting long shadows across the walls of the small room. Its golden light illuminated his reflection once more to behold, now free of the filth that had marred his otherwise flawless appearance.  

This should have sufficed in lifting his mood at least a modest amount, but instead Kuja found himself sulking in solitude yet again. In truth, the act of washing had only served to underscore an increasingly obvious fact—that his pitiful state had turned even the most trivial of tasks into a monumental endeavor. 

The frustration of the preceding hour still stung fresh. His thoughts insistently drifted back to this as he continued to lose the battle of working a comb through his damp—and wholly uncooperative—tangle of hair. The actual labor involved in attending to his vanity only became clear in the event of doing so with one hand. With an undeniable exhaustion finally catching up with him, the situation had almost made him reconsider the value of indulging his ego in such a way.  

Almost. 

And if this failure to contend with a trifling bit of preening was not enough to stir his temper, the persistent sounds emanating from the adjoining kitchen were certainly driving toward that end. Terra had wasted no time in setting to work at preparing the promised remedy, and that might have been appreciated—the dull ache radiating from his forearm had him welcoming the idea of any relief—and yet— 

A maddeningly candid giggle and an offer spoken in kindness echoed in his mind. These _things_ , deceptively subtle in nature, that continued to wear a growing hole in his carefully maintained pretense of poise and confidence. 

 _“I’m_ _pretty_ _sure I already know the answer to this, but_ — _”_  

 _Kuja_ _glanced over at her from his roost at the table, where a map_ _of the world_ _lay unfurled before him. Unfamiliar names and unfamiliar places, no different than he_ _had_ _expected. But it was the amusement in her voice, as she built a tenuous fire, that turned his faint impression of disappointment to one of_ _suspicion._

 _“—you really should let me help you,” Terra finished, voice tensing as she hoisted the metal basin atop the iron stove. “That injury won’t heal properly if you disturb it.”_  

 _His eyes narrowed, tail twitching irritably. When they had returned from their errand, she had warmly offered to heat enough water so that they might both get a sorely needed bath before the hour grew too late. An offer that he had been of no mind to decline, of course._  

_This new request of hers, however, was not one he appreciated in the slightest._

_“If you already know the answer, then why bother asking?” he sniped back, evasively returning his gaze to the map. The quiet laugh this elicited from her was briskly ignored. “Surely you_ _understand_ _that accepting your assistance was not without its boundaries.”_  

Yes—he’d spoken of boundaries then. Boundaries between them that took the shape of his rapidly shrinking sense of dignity. Boundaries that were so easily breached with a fleeting frisson of impossible desire when her hand had gently held his. 

The fine teeth of the comb caught painfully on a snarled strand, and he growled under his breath. The very idea of what had come over him in that moment was nothing short of appalling. To experience such a base, compromising emotion—it was beyond unacceptable, and it had not taken long for that indignation to swell into the beginnings of a deep denial.  

Her company would need to be tolerated for the time being, this was true. But the aberrant stirrings of a heady yearning—the want to feel that tender touch again—would absolutely not be. And thwarting such a ridiculous fancy could not possibly be so difficult a feat. 

It was what he now sought to convince himself, at least. But the temptation, the irrepressible impulse to explore the terrain of such a _pleasant_ unknown, lingered like a heavy mist.  

Undesirable truths had a special persistence like that, after all. Some hidden phantom of another life, tucked in a distant corner of his mind, knew this to be an all too familiar dilemma. 

An abrupt knock upon the door drew him at once from the looming thought, sharp gaze flitting in its direction with a scowl. With a huff of unspoken annoyance, Kuja dropped the comb on the edge of the bed beside him. Abandoning the effort might have hid from her the fact that he was struggling with it, but the mess that more than half of his hair was left in certainly wouldn’t. 

“Can I come in?”  

Terra’s voice, naturally. Softened by a note of caution, a trait of hers that had quickly become unbearable. It made him wonder if she was like that by nature, or if something about him gave her cause to be wary. 

Not that he would fault her for it, if that were the case. _As if being distrusted is_ _such an oddity_ _…_  

Still, he rolled his eyes. 

“This is _your_ room,” he replied dryly, a bit more biting than he had intended. Then, in a softer tone, “You hardly need my permission to enter.” 

There was silence from the other side of the door, as though she were actually considering this. But no more than a few moments passed before the knob turned with a squeak, spilling the brighter light of the kitchen into the room as she slipped inside. 

She held the fruits of her work in her arms, a bundle of cloth and a small marble bowl presumably containing the concoction she had cheerfully described earlier. This was noted merely in passing before his interest fell on her changed appearance, the evidence of a bath that had left her clean and radiant. The light blonde shade of her hair was darkened with dampness, loose tendrils that spilled down her chest, and the colorful outfit had been traded for a modest woolen gown. 

“You’d really expect me to treat a guest so rudely?” Terra answered, a humorous smile visible in the candlelight. Her gaze was on the bowl she held, giving its contents another stir. “And besides—I only wanted to be sure you were, well, _decent._ ” 

The implication eluded him only briefly before he realized what she referred to. Physical perfection had never given him any reason to feel shame, and he had readily teased her on the topic the last time she approached it. But something had changed ever so slightly since they had left the woods—something he had not yet succeeded in fully comprehending, much less eradicating. 

In light of it all, her girlish remarks were no longer so amusing. 

Schooling his thoughts back into place, Kuja assumed a smirk that he hoped would be a worthy feign of ignorance. “I don’t foresee being _decent_ for quite some time. Even if I weren’t pathetically crippled, there is still the troubling little detail that I’m now a mage without magic.” 

His eyes roved away from her for just a moment, but the sensation at his side of weight shifting the bed quickly drew a bristling glance from him. Despite the pretenses of courtesy, she was irritatingly adamant in her role as a healer. He had expected she would be this way about treating his injury. 

But she had set the remedies beside her on the edge of the bed where the two of them now rested, one leg folded neatly under her as she looked upon him. Both intense and gentle at once, her gaze was—unsettling, to say the least. 

“There _are_ other ways to fight, you know,” she finally said, now wearing a far too comfortable smile. “If I can handle a sword, I don’t see why you can’t. I could even teach you, if you’d allow me to.” 

Kuja snorted dismissively at this, and the smile ebbed from her lips. “I have no intention of taking up the weapons of the dull-witted. And even if I wanted to, I certainly would _not_ need a woman's help to do so.” 

The flicker of hurt that slipped into her face gave him a guilty thrill of satisfaction, petty revenge for that instant of weakness she had wrought in the forest. A frown, and Terra cast her eyes downward again. It was almost a victory, until that violet gaze cut back toward him with the traces of a knowing grin beginning to join it. 

“Hmm—well.” She glanced down, fingers brushing thoughtfully over the discarded comb between them. He had, of course, thieved the delicate crystal trinket from her vanity. “You definitely look like you could use a woman’s help right now.” 

The unanticipated jab left him momentarily speechless, expression icy and still. _She had noticed._ How could she not? 

“Rude,” he managed sharply, glaring. “ _Quite_ rude.” 

Her head canted to the side slightly, eyebrows raised. Kuja knew without affirmation that she indicated his hypocrisy yet again, but this time she did not call him out on it. Instead, the steadfast smile suggested a more insidious scheme brewing behind her eyes. 

“It’s not rude if I’m willing to help, is it?” Terra questioned carefully, voice dancing with a hint of mischief. “But—is it asking so much to let me do this small favor for you?” 

There was only the silence of the burning candle as she held her gaze on him, earnest beneath the playful teasing. Her soft features shrouded in light struck a spark of familiarity once again, reignited in defiance of her quiet apology, and he looked away in pained frustration. 

“I really wouldn’t mind it. Honestly.” A low giggle, and his attention was unwittingly drawn back to her again. “You _do_ have such lovely hair.” 

He frowned at this, suspicions abruptly confirmed as her strategy became clear. Biting back an irritated sigh, he eyed her sidelong with transparent scrutiny. Of course she would bait him with coy flattery. Her attempts at all other forms of coercion had been rejected, so of course she would choose something she knew would tempt him. 

And, of course, it would indeed do exactly that. 

It was difficult to look at her, then, as he considered relenting to her wishes. That would mean she would be near him again, _touching him_ again, and—well, it was not truly so terrible a thought anymore. The fear of her closeness had metamorphosed, replaced with a much deeper fear. The fear that it _might_ , perhaps, be rather nice.  

Kuja suppressed an involuntary shudder at this, keeping his hesitation in check with only an unchanging need to save face. And so he nodded almost imperceptibly, insisting in his own mind that he did not notice the delight that entered her expression. 

“Very well,” he sighed, falsely dramatic and none too pleased that her smile still did not falter at his tone. “But—do _not_ give me reason to regret it.” 

Without any of the apprehension that he himself was failing to hide, her proximity was immediately tangible as she moved closer. Too close, really, and he glared a warning at her. Given the fact that his hair was easily waistlength, there was no reason whatsoever for _that_ —and yet there she was, both legs now tucked beneath her as she made herself comfortable at his side. 

There was an admonishment on the tip of his tongue, but her deft fingers were buried in the lush strands of silver before he could think to form words. The sudden gesture felt strikingly intimate, and he could not help but stare at her, mesmerized, wavering somewhere between shock and fascination. 

He must have flinched visibly at the contact, because Terra glanced up from her task at once. She paused, eyes darkened and contrite. “You—aren’t fond of being touched.” 

It wasn’t a question. Kuja blinked slowly, glancing away from her again, and gave an indifferent shrug. “I wouldn’t say I prefer it. But I suppose it’s a...necessary evil, in this case.” 

“I’m sorry. If I was being too pushy.” Teasing the comb tactfully through a snagged end, she shook her head. “You’re just so stubborn about everything, and I wanted to help.” 

He had fallen right back into watching her, something he found much too easy to do without realizing. She wore a look of concentration, and it was entertaining enough to warrant a dry smile. “And _you_ —are disturbingly talented at that.” 

“I have a village of little girls to take care of. What else would you expect?” She laughed softly, oblivious to the insinuation for only a moment until she caught his offended glower. “Oh—I didn’t mean it that way!” 

“If only your insults were the worst of my misfortunes right now, Terra,” he chided, the unimpressed stare remaining. A clever feint to provoke that amusing pout from her again, but her expression became serious instead. 

“The poultice should bring down the swelling a bit, but it won’t be as potent without drying the moss for a few days.” Her face had fallen, and he felt her eyes wandering to his injured arm, sheltered now beneath the heavy linen tunic she had afforded him. “I really do miss magic the most, when it comes to easing pain.” 

Kuja had to smirk at this, her utterly predictable sense of responsibility. “I seem to recall telling you to worry less for others. That _does_ include me, you realize?” 

That lured a smile from her, tentative though it was, and the silence that followed it didn’t quite carry the same uneasiness that had filled him before. There was only the gentle tug of her fingers, oddly soothing, to continuously feed a nagging sense of distrust. His inner schemer wanted to see the same machinations in her own actions, wanted to believe that she was aware of the effect her delicate touch was having—but the innocence that she exuded made it so terribly hard to find even a shred of malicious intent. 

It reminded him of heated words exchanged between them, and a question still veiled in mystery. 

“We never did finish,” he began casually, deliberate in keeping his voice free of intrigue, “our conversation, out there—” 

His gaze was pinned to her now, welling up with a kind of reluctance. Uncertain, twice shy, of what seeking more answers from her could bring. “You had said our paths were the same.”  

She looked up at him through dark lashes, unsuspecting, and asking suddenly seemed so very profane. He looked away, disgusted by the feeling of shame, and said it anyway. 

“I would hear your story, if you would tell it.”


	8. Chapter 8

Moments passed in fragile silence as his softly spoken request hung in the air, the veiled question as paper-thin as his waning confidence.  

The loss of contact struck him immediately when she drew back slightly, and Kuja found himself wondering why, _why_ this left him with a shivering sense of dread. Fear, perhaps, that she truly was right? That her fate mirrored his in some twisted way—that the knowledge might reawaken some terrible past that was better left in darkness? 

Yes and yes, but there yet remained a more troubling thought lurking within. The thought of her face frozen with surprise and doubt, an expression he could picture with a strange vividness. The thought that now kept his gaze lingering in the corner, excruciatingly aware that it could not possibly be a memory. 

He wasn’t quite able to bring himself to look at her, too bitter at his own misstep, as he muttered the faint approximation of an apology.  

“You aren’t obligated to tell me. If it's too—”  

A pause, and he questioned himself reproachfully. _Too what?_  

He lowered his tone, defying his more rational faculties as some dim instinct supplied the word, “—painful.”  

Her delicate features wore it clearly in his mind. Even the subtlest signs of pain were so deeply ingrained in his psyche, it was nearly impossible to mistake it. Unbidden, Kuja considered again the sad smile she had worn a scant few hours ago. The firm grip that sank into his skin, down to the bone, beneath the evening shade of a leafbare tree. And, finally, the ardent gaze that dared to challenge his claims of apathy toward a half-recalled life stained with blood. 

“I was merely curious,” he continued now, the lie unwieldy on his tongue. Retreating, in truth, to the safety of flippant indifference and shallow pleasantries. “Forgive my…indiscretion.” 

Hardly had the words even left him when the sensation of warmth found him again, this time a careful brush of fingertips at the wrist of his injured arm. He cast a lackadaisical glance over her grasping hand, incongruously relieved by the tender signal despite an equally persistent urge to reject it. 

“You didn’t upset me—you mustn't think that!” Terra's voice cut through with an immediacy that drew his gaze back to her at once, though his thoughts lay stubbornly on the hand that rested upon him. “I just wasn’t expecting that you would want to know, to be honest. Once I had the chance to think about it, I felt it might have been too much, earlier. When I was asking you those questions so soon.” 

An icy blue stare remained on her, calculating. That gentle smile was on her face again, a reaction that still puzzled him to his core. It had the odd quality of appearing when the topic of conversation seemed least to warrant it, as if it were an offer of reassurance both for herself and those who beheld it. 

“I thought it might be better to give you some time.” Barely above a whisper, but no less sincere. “I didn’t get the impression that you really wanted to talk about it, and...I didn’t want to cause trouble by reminding you of anything—” 

“Terrible?” Kuja guessed dryly, a reassertion of his first assumption. She was skirting the issue, well-meaning as it might have been, and if it was not for her own sake then it clearly was for his. While he couldn’t quite say that he felt resentment toward her consideration, neither did he appreciate having this choice made for him.  

“If you have no objections to speaking of it—” He halted mid-sentence, now recognizing the familiar shadow of worry in her eyes. It left him at a horrible disadvantage once again, compelled to reclaim some degree of power, and so he trailed his own hesitant touch over her hand where it met his. “I won’t have you holding back to— _protect me_ from the truth, as touching as your concern may be. Whatever it is I’ve left behind …” 

A hint of surprise was evident on Terra's face as he stole a glance up, searching despite himself for something in her expression _._ It occurred to him that he had yet to reciprocate these physical gestures of hers until this moment, and his fingers twitched where their hands joined, precarious and unsure. 

“I intend to face it,” he finished quietly. Defeatedly, almost, and the thought of it made his blood sing with a loathsome shame. “I’m not… _afraid_ of remembering.” 

Convincing her, or convincing himself? Kuja scowled sourly, withdrawing from their shared contact in one deliberate movement, and fixed her with a sullen glare. She was making this difficult enough to deserve his ill temper, even if it happened to be a bit more half-hearted than he would have ever admitted. 

“I promise, I wasn’t holding back.” Her tone was still soft as she spoke it, and he could feel her leaning close, teasing against the glossy silver veil of his hair. Which, he was forced to concede, had been made lovely again by her attentions. “If you want to remember, I’ll do what I can to help you. I just didn’t want to presume that you did.”  

It melted into a barely detectable sigh before she continued. “And I wouldn’t have thought less of you if you did—want to forget, that is. There are things that I wish I could forget myself, sometimes. But I believe that my past, both the good and the bad…I wouldn’t be who I am without all of it.” 

Seizing upon the luxury to observe her, as she absently picked at the hem of her robe, his bitter expression darkened. It was obvious that they did not share a common attitude toward the subject, but the feeling of disdain that he ought to have felt toward this fact was infuriatingly dampened by a simmering envy. 

“Then I trust you won't leave me in suspense any longer,” he muttered, the vitriol of his thoughts seeping effortlessly into his words. “If you truly mean what you’ve said.” 

Still harboring an intangible wariness, his stare remained adamant and steady as their gazes finally met. The trace of uncertainty that tempered her brow was not lost on him. For all of her calm insistence that the conversation did not disturb her, his own perception was too acutely tuned toward detecting weakness to miss the clear evidence. 

“I suppose the best place for me to start would be what you can already see with your own eyes,” Terra stated calmly, after what seemed like an eternity in tense silence. “The man who—made me his weapon. He was responsible for the cataclysm that left the land in ruin, still struggling to heal in many places. Though my allies and I defeated him, we were forced to destroy the source of magic, and his power, in the process.” 

She continued to examine her lap, the slight curve of a hunch in her spine as she leaned forward. The world that she described was still glaringly unfamiliar, something he had already admitted to himself hours prior, but it was also proving to be quite intriguing. 

“But...he was not the first to use me in such a way. It would certainly be fair to say I was intended to be a tool of war for almost all of my life, though I never knew it.” Her tone had become intimately familiar now, the sound ringing with that same emptiness he had felt when she pressed him on the subject earlier. “Like I told you, I wasn’t always fully human. My mother was human, but my father was of a race of powerful beings called ‘espers’ whose strength was sought by the Empire. That was why they took me from them, when I only a few years old.” 

 _Powerful beings_. Now _that_ was something that stirred faintly in his memories. Creatures of wings, fangs, claws, and scales—undeniably alluring in their might. A coincidence, or perhaps a sign that he wasn’t half as mad as he had come to suspect. 

“Then, I expect you possessed the power of these espers,” Kuja ventured, veering toward an affectation of boredom that was meant to hide his growing curiosity. At least she had ceased the facade of pretending he might remember any of these things. “Which, of course, can only be magic.” 

She lifted her head at this, regarding him with violet eyes through the golden waves of her hair. For a fleeting moment, he found himself unable to read the meaning behind her expression. It was a decidedly new predicament, when she had been so warm and open with him thus far. 

“Yes,” she confirmed softly, and her eyes fell briefly closed. “Very few humans are capable of using magic, and those who were hid themselves away. That’s why magic was of great interest to the Emperor—why I was raised as a subject of research at his direction. That included being trained as a soldier, in the service of the Empire.” 

“Hence the blade.” He shook his head slightly, wondering what sort of power she had held that would make her worthy of an empire’s interest. “So, you’ve seen your share of battle, then?” 

It had seemed a harmless question before he’d spoken it, but the crease of the girl’s thoughtful frown deepened with unmistakable pain. The light of the candle painted inky shadows over her face, and in some dissonant way, it made for a hauntingly captivating sight. 

“Not—in the sense that you’re thinking, I’m sure.” Terra blinked again, slow and deliberate. “When I said weapon, I don’t mean as a soldier. The Empire had many of their own magic-infused warriors whose skill in battle far surpassed what I would have achieved myself—or would have been willing to do.” 

Her hand came to her lips as she paused again. Ever at odds with his own shrewd powers of observation, Kuja found himself in the regrettable position of noticing a slight tremble in her fingers. The morbid interest he had taken in her story found uneven ground, faltering, and stumbled into a renewed sense of confliction. 

“The man I spoke of— _Kefka_.” There was steel in her tone as she said it at last, too uncharacteristic to ignore. “A general under the Emperor. He—created a device that would control the wearer in both mind and body, and used it to make me do … _horrible_ things. To people who did not even stand a chance of defending themselves.” 

Kuja considered this momentarily, still watching her with a careful gaze, before his expression twitched into a humorless smirk. 

“Enslaving a girl to do one’s dirty work doesn't exactly sound fitting for a man who laid waste to this land,” he replied mildly, unimpressed. “And from what you’ve told me, I’d hazard a guess that he made a habit of borrowing power.” 

She nodded tacitly at this, but the distance in her eyes was still looking to some place lost to time. “Kefka sought whatever power he could, so long as it ended with destruction…and he sought destruction only for his enjoyment. After he met his demise—only then, really, did I understand that there was nothing in life that he could have ever held dear. I believe he may have even desired his own end for that reason.”  

Terra hung her head, as though this, too, caused her grief. “There was a void in his heart that could never be filled. Not with love, nor with the destruction of this world.” 

Unthinking, Kuja leaned back from her a fraction. She mourned the broken soul of her tormentor? It seemed incredible to him, and he dipped his chin down, skeptical. And the way she had described this Kefka— 

He frowned again, the disparate pieces of her tale and this _thing_ that hovered between them rapidly aligning into an ugly picture. 

“You had insisted that you and I are alike,” he began, an edge of disgust in his otherwise unaffected tone. She glanced up at him, gradually, her face framed with blonde curls. “I must—correct you there.” 

The silence of the room became a vast chasm as she examined him carefully—imploring, if he’d been of a mind to notice. Instead, he returned to the comfortable tactic of simply _not looking at her_. 

“Being some fool’s puppet hardly makes you— _like me_. Whatever it is I _was_ , I’ve already made it clear to you.” He twisted at the cloth of the blanket beneath them, a cold passion stirring. “I _enjoyed_ destruction.” 

He pictured her face falling again, suppressing the hint of displeasure this had caused him mere minutes ago. It was easily replaced with the soft note of a chuckle.  

“No different from your captor, really,” he added quietly, but the callousness with which he’d wanted to say it had shifted to that same hollow dismay. “It stretches the limits of the imagination—why you would entertain a guest with the same…proclivities.” 

His voice dropped lower still, and when he found it again, it felt as though he said it only to himself. “You spoke from ignorance, assuming you knew _anything_ about me. Of what I’ve done. After all, as you’ve so kindly confirmed—we are strangers to each other.” 

Kuja kept his head down now, fuming wordlessly. He didn’t want to see what emotion her face wore. And as determined as he was to avoid it, he concluded bitterly that it made no difference anyway. 

He didn’t _have_ to look, because he already knew. 

“You’re right,” he heard her speak evenly, matching his tone. “It’s true that I don’t know your story. But unless you’ve kept something from me, _you_ don’t know your story right now, either.” 

He lifted his gaze to her, finding an expression of fortitude piercing into him. It earned him a small smile from her, indomitable in its unspoken certainty. 

“And besides—I don’t _need_ to know.” Terra shrugged, smile growing fainter. “There’s this … _sadness_ about you. I couldn’t miss it. How could I, when it was once my sadness, too?” 

The light of the candle flickered dimly in her eyes. A familiar illusion again, both enthralling and terrible, and the haughty retort that longed to burst forth was soon dead in his throat. 

He held her gaze defiantly, bereft of words, and resigned himself to saying nothing at all.


	9. Chapter 9

No more than necessary was said between them as Terra tended and redressed his injury. It made for a miserable lapse of time where he could only wait stiffly under the touch of her careful ministrations, hardly daring to steal a glance.  

The preceding conversation still lingered heavily, much too heavily, and for all of his heated conviction—there existed a glaring lack of context upon which to anchor his claims. A skillful practitioner of denial,  Kuja had first come to the conclusion that she was seeking out something in him that simply wasn’t there to be found.  Skewed by her own experiences, aided by the phantasms of guilt, and wholly inapplicable to the likes of him. 

 _Then why does it bother you so?_

This question came from the rational part of his mind. Discontent with any introduction of doubt, it yearned to thwart the source of it. A presumptuous interloper, full of misguided hope, too naïve to understand the futility of theories based on whimsical emotion. He would be all too glad to drown those hopes in the cold waters of reality. 

_Just one little problem._

He suppressed a sigh. That would require a proper hold on his memories. How could he prove something to her that he could not even prove to himself?

“I guess that’ll have to do for now,” Terra declared suddenly, and he realized then that he had been paying her no notice at all for the past several minutes. His gaze fell upon his forearm, neatly bound and eased by a soothing warmth. “How does it feel? Not too tight?”

Under her expectant stare, a resurgence of wariness returned to the surface. Where that sweet face had seemed to convey such tenderness before, he could now only imagine that those eyes were seeing right through him. It trivialized the small injuries to his pride that had so recently felt unbearable.

The lazy glance that wandered over her did little to answer. Instead, he experimentally tested the movement of his fingers, finding that the accompanying ache had indeed become a great deal more tolerable.

“You’ve my thanks.” He said this quietly, and for a moment he was certain he meant it, too, until resentment swept in to color it black. “Again, it would seem.”

When she replied with the hint of a laugh, he needed no more justification to make clear his offense. It would have taken the form of an unimpressed glare, had he not been soon to feel her touch again, brushing aside the silver wisp that he had been sulking behind to simply smile at him ruefully.

“You don’t sound too happy about that,” she noted, more wry than apologetic.  


Not for the first time, her forwardness was enough to cost him an instant of wide-eyed surprise. Though it rapidly shattered, the veneer of indifference that returned was not as perfect as it once had been.

“Rather unladylike to tease, isn’t it?” he quipped back, regarding her with naked distaste. And yet the noticeable heat that suffused his expression was not so quickly banished with words of scorn. “Your impropriety never ceases to amaze.”

Kuja had triumphantly expected that offended furrow in her brow to reappear, but the satisfied grin remained unmoving. His squinted disapproval knew not what to make of this, turned swiftly to a dismissive huff and an uncommitted smirk. 

“More _specifically_ , you have a habit of finding amusement at my expense,” he revised dryly, rolling his eyes. “I might be able to appreciate your wickedness, were the hour not so late.” 

That, of course, would be what finally stole the smile from her face. How delightfully simple it was to win her remorse in such a way. 

“And you would have to be exhausted.” Terra lowered her eyes, shifting forward slightly. “I wish you had said something sooner, if I was keeping you.”

He smiled again at this. “You ought to know by now that I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you my thoughts.”

“I guess that’s true,” she agreed, moving dutifully to depart, and he felt the tiny spark of cheer she had ignited threatening to leave with her. “Still…”

She paused in the doorway, leaning against it as she seemed to consider something. Her gaze on him suddenly felt all too scrutinizing once more. “You haven’t exactly been open about telling me if you need something. So, if there’s anything I can do…”

The impression of warmth that had been coaxed into him turned cold, hearing only the light reprimand in her voice. A frigid defensiveness swelled anew, and he refused to divert his gaze from her this time.

“I think—”

He had begun with a glib coolness, but the way her head quirked to the side dulled the edge to his tone. When he spoke again, it was with a far more honest chagrin. “I think you’ve done enough.”

This provoked an expression of worry from her only for a moment, inexplicably solemn, before becoming very still. Then, with the briefest of smiles, Terra vanished behind the creak of the closing door.

Which left him again,  Kuja thought, with the silence of his own troubled mind. 

Allowing himself an irate sigh at last, he shifted over to extinguish the nearby candle. Only the thin light of the moon in the window kept the small room from complete darkness. He closed his eyes against it as he leaned back into the soft surface of the bed, too keen to the luxury of solitude to find any more critique in the accommodations.

But while the night might have held the promise of repose, the events of the day would not be put to bed so easily. This became all too apparent as his thoughts soon wandered back down the path of their latest conversation.

Tail writhing anxiously beside him, the pangs of frustration could not wait to regroup. He hadn’t won that argument—it would be pointless to pretend otherwise. Worse still, he could derive no answer to the question of why she felt so compelled to show him such—compassion? Pity? Even the right word for it eluded him entirely.

_A waste of your time, Terra._ The thought came bitterly as he curled up on his good side, wincing when a sharp pain flared. _But you haven’t the sense to see that, do you?_

Shifting irritably again,  Kuja came to rest prone. The difficulty of finding a comfortable position was not improving his mood in the slightest. And while he could have quite happily continued stewing over this accumulation of misfortunes, he had to concede that there were...interesting...details that had come of their exchange. 

An  _esper_ , she'd said. An exceptional creature, by the sound of it, commanding vast magical strength.

_The kind that could make a gentle girl into a tool of war …_  


If only he’d had the presence of mind to ask of her abilities. Had she left cities in ruin—laid low armies—with naught but her own two hands? The possibilities were certainly alluring, and even the shame he had found in her  expression could not stop him from considering such a power lustfully.  

It was a dangerous  daydream to conjure, but the encroaching vines of fatigue obscured the clarity of reason. He imagined eyes of inhuman gold, blood seething with a fire that burned insatiable, until darkness came at last. 

* * *

_A cloudless night sky greeted him as consciousness unmercifully returned, the moon high and offensively bright. The silence that accompanied it was so surreal, so perfect and complete, that death seemed an absolute certainty for a fleeting moment._

_ Then came the pain.  _

_ Pinpointing it to a single source felt like an impossibility. Voracious, all-consuming—the prospect of slipping back into oblivion was at once a welcome thought.  A temptation he would have happily succumbed to, in fact, if not for the suffocating constriction burning in his lungs._

_The breath he hungrily tried to take in pierced the air with a strangled gasp. Spinning hazily, the world became a blur as he rolled over as much as his broken body would allow, fingers grasping at his chest. His mind registered dampn ess chilling at flesh, vision stabilizing on another source of light. _

_Fire. It was a fire. He absently reached for the thought—where was he? Where had he been before this? And then— _

_ A messy head of blonde hair came into view, leaning slightly over him. Even  deathly pale and covered in a miserable combination of blood, wounds, and dirt—even with delirium clouding his own failing faculties—recognition arrived without delay. _

_ Zidane. _

_ His expression lacked the carefree charm that made him seem so effortlessly confident. No, now there was the graveness of worry instead. And as recollection began to fill up the blank spots, it wasn’t hard to realize why. _

_ The final battle, under the glow of the planet’s crystal. The  Iifa’s  dying rage. His own rage, too, that had reached its peak and fallen rapidly into sorrow, until the two were nearly indistinguishable. Perhaps they always had been one and the same for a shallow puppet such as himself. _

_ A pretender to the very last,  Kuja forced a smile nonetheless. _

_ “My dear brother,” he laughed softly, the sound ragged and uneven. “You’re looking quite dreadful this fine evening.” _

_ The smile he got in return spoke grim before any words were said. “Can’t imagine I look worse than you do. You might—not  wanna check it out just yet.” _

_Disregarding this advice, he strained a glance over his body. Difficult in the shadowed lighting, but the mosaic of blood staining both bare skin and pale fabric said enough. One of his arms was almost entirely numb, and a dark bloom on his chest gave reason to the labor of breathing. _

_ What a terribly cruel farce, to pretend that this was survivable. If the boy was smart, he would have left with his allies and spared them both this fate. _

_ “I’m afraid my reprise will have to be short.” His gaze now moved to their surroundings, nestled in the lee of the  Iifa’s  massive outlying roots. “It would’ve been better to leave Terra’s greatest failures to perish together—a poetic finale, at least.” _

_ The stare on him moved from concerned to affronted. “There was no way I was leaving you there! I couldn’t—” _

_ “Couldn’t possibly think I was long for this world, with or without your meddling,” Kuja finished spitefully. “You’ve done us both a disservice.” _

_ “I wasn’t really expecting a ‘thank you’, but you can’t seriously hate me for this.” His voice had steeled, that insufferable conviction Zidane had about doing the ‘right’ thing. “I know you didn’t  wanna die with that monstrosity. You really think you’re no better—that you don’t deserve to see the light of day again?”  _

_ The question hung in the air without answer. Kuja closed his eyes again, trying vainly to block out the ebb and flow of pain. _

_ “So then, how?” he asked, and his meaning did not require explanation. It was not until a moment of silence passed that he cracked open an eye to behold  a sheepish expression, reluctance painting every feature. _

_ Oh. _

_ “Hah, of course.” He tried to laugh, but it merely turned into another pained gasp. “Trance. You did manage to add some flavor to this little drama, didn’t you? A valiant rescue, all thanks to the one thing you’ve always surpassed me in.” _

_ This seemed to hit a sore spot where previous chiding had failed. Zidane cast his gaze away, frowning in what was clearly more hurt than offense or anger. But instead of invoking any feeling of regret, the outrage only swelled more intensely. _

_ “Why—why did you even do it?” Still maintaining a shred of pride, Kuja willfully ignored the tremor in his own words. “I’ll be dead before dawn, Zidane—don't deny me the truth of this. No more fantasies of how I’d have done the same for you.” _

_ The dejection in the younger man’s face turned to a cringe. He did not answer for several long moments, the low hum of insects providing a somber interlude. _

_ “My friends asked me the same thing,” he said at last, a fickle smile joining a small shake of his head. “I—don’t think I ever could’ve explained it properly. Not to them, and maybe not to you, either.” _

_ He glanced up now, unabashed, and Kuja suddenly felt himself the smaller of the two all over again. As it always had been, and always would be. _

_ “When Garland told me what I was—what I had been…made…for.” A shudder seemed to course through him, visible even in the darkness. “When I came back to the home that I thought I’d been searching for my whole life. And there was nothing there but emptiness…” _

_ He closed his eyes tightly again, as if the memory still haunted him. How foolish Garland had been, Kuja thought then, to truly expect a child that had seen Gaia’s vibrancy to embrace the desolation of Terra. He, too, as a nascent lifeform, had looked upon it and refused it as his home. _

_ Another lie, really, when he would soon die as empty a soul as any in that dead world. _

_ “I almost gave up. I almost turned my back on my friends. If they hadn’t been there—”  
_

_His eyes fluttered open. Sky blue, identical to those of the vacant vessels of Bran Bal, and yet so full of a depth that Kuja had never found in another of their kind.  
_

_ “I don’t know what would’ve happened to me,” Zidane admitted quietly. “Maybe I would’ve gone crazy—maybe I would’ve a long time ago, if I’d been in your place. If I’d had—nobody.” _

_ He felt fingertips trail gently down his arm. It was surprisingly tender, for the thick-headed street urchin that he knew his—brother to be. But still he did not look at him._

_“What happened to you, and what you did. It wasn’t your fault—not all of it.” _

_ There was a hot burning in his eyes, so unfamiliar. He hadn’t—hadn’t let himself do that, not since the moment he had fled the ruins of Terra in despair. The idea was still so new and terrifying, to feel something rather than merely play at feeling something. _

_ He just wasn’t sure what exactly that something was, and he hadn’t nearly enough time left to figure it out. _

_ “I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it. That you  kinda—gave me the chance to meet those people.” Zidane smiled again, the sentimentality almost at home on his face now. “Even if you didn’t mean it.” _

_The dark humor of this reminder managed to win a smirk. He’d sown his own demise with that act of both supreme pettiness and mercy. Too much appreciation for irony to let such a thing escape his notice, and too little appreciation for gratitude to dare hope that it could salvage his legacy. Even the final gift of protection he had afforded the boy and his friends had seemed such inadequate repentance.  
_

_ Maybe, in the end, he simply did not want to be forgiven at all. _

_ “I’m...sorry that I can’t give you the chance to feel what that's like. To care about someone, and for them to care about you.” The smile had all but vanished from Zidane's expression, and this time, Kuja found himself wishing he could see it return. “You wanted to know what it meant to live, and that’s—what I think it is.”  _

_"It might be a pleasant novelty,” he agreed, trying for casual and hitting closer to morose, if not outright exhausted. “Perhaps, when I wake, I—”_

_There were sparkling motes filling his vision now, and he rested his eyes again. “I think I’d like to try.” _

_ If Zidane had answered, he could not think to hear words any longer. He felt darkness curl around him, comforting and warm, until it gave way to light at last.  
_


	10. Chapter 10

Dawn had brought with it a misty fog, hanging low over the meadows and streams. It was soon joined by a steady fall of rain by mid-morning, driving the sparse inhabitants of Mobliz into the shelter of their meager homes. The silence that enveloped the small town was noticeable even at a distance, no voices of children or bark from a dog, and the stranger among them lingered alone beneath the branches of an outlying tree. 

 _Alone._ The once welcomed word tasted bitter now, tainted by memories that had risen anew. Memories that he had so arrogantly sought to reclaim, heedless of what might be discovered therein. 

A shuddering sigh escaped him, and Kuja cast his gaze up through the canopy of leaves above. The gray sky peeked through, heavy raindrops greeting his face as he closed his eyes tightly against the drizzle. 

It had only been some hours ago that he had awakened to this world once more, drenched in a cold sweat and robbed of breath by a flood of terror. Sheer panic that had rendered him motionless in the early morning darkness, every detail returned with painful clarity. The rush of meaning came swift and unrelenting, imbuing images and names to make them whole again. 

Soul joining body, the callous sterility of his birth. Years of meticulous resistance, a carefully laid path to freedom—all for naught. His fate, unraveled before his disbelieving eyes, and his sanity with it. 

 _A_ _lifetime_ _t_ _old in thr_ _ee acts_ _,_ _crowned with a villain justly vanquished_ _..._  

Oh, and how close it hovered even still, a shadow dark and dreadful. The memory of his death, that which had released him from the cage of his miserable existence, brimming with regret and a terrible inevitability. 

Without thought, Kuja brushed his fingertips lightly along the rain-dampened curve of his throat. Warm, intact, not a trace of the blood or injury that he had frantically searched for upon waking. Only a crippled arm, utterly nonfatal and of an origin which he could not speak to with any confidence. 

A frown was quick to form at this, and he drew his loathsome tail close to his chest in a vain bid for comfort. He _had_ met the demise he had so fervently hurled himself toward— _surely he had!_ And so there was simply no explaining how he found himself huddled here presently, feeling the chill of rain on his skin and the gentle teasing of wind in his hair. 

After all, if what he remembered was true…there could be no god in all of the heavens that would’ve delivered to him these favorable circumstances. A world of newly found peace, where no one could know him for the blight that he had always been?  

His scowl deepened, insulted as he was baffled by the thought. Had he truly been denied his dying wish of penance for his crimes? Eternal oblivion, the eradication of his soul—had he not deserved such an end? 

 _And to now be afforded such charity instead!_  

Burning hot with discontent, the thought surged up to join his quickly building indignation. It had all been too overwhelming at first, enough so that he had considered leaving the village at once without a word or a backwards glance. But the cold bite of morning air had come as a sharp blow to the notion of unreality, and as his gaze wandered over his carefully bound arm once again, the hesitation to depart suggested a more complex reasoning than mere survival. 

The girl, with her unfortunate namesake and entirely too much of herself to give in kindness. It could not have been a feeling of indebtedness to her, certainly, that had given him pause. The very idea of obligation was a foreign concept to him, wholly incompatible with a view of the world that had only room for his own interests. This was an old truth that he wanted to preserve, comfortable and familiar as it was, and yet a series of equally irrefutable facts taunted him just as stubbornly.

She had taken him in without question, promising to aid him in his compromised state of both body and mind. Going far beyond what was called for, in fact, and withstanding his many criticisms and slights all the while. She had even shared with him the painful details of her own unhappy past. And, in turn, he— 

A shiver coursed through him as he considered the previous evening. Reluctant though it might have been, he had allowed her a closeness he had never once thought to grant another. A tentative trust that had begun as necessity and unwittingly grown into something far more troubling. With his past obscured, it had been frighteningly easy to let that guard falter—to forget that, in all of his cherished vanity, he had sworn others to be unworthy of him in every way.  

He let the soft length of his tail slip through his fingers, sighing again as a distant peal of thunder tore through the peaceful silence. Zidane had wanted this for him—something like this, anyway. The boy had been completely oblivious to the fact that it simply could never be. That he lacked the means to appreciate the affections of others, much less to return them in kind. He had been told this in so many words, and his inability to achieve Trance merely proved it beyond a doubt. 

 _And yet, you never even tried, did you?_ An internal voice of objection cut in at once, awakened again by the stinging reminder. _You sought so desperately to prove to that old fool that he underestimated you, and you would now permit him the final say on such a matter? Why?_  

He leaned his head against the rough bark of the tree, eyes tracing the sky. Such an unpleasant question with a dozen unpleasant answers.  

Because he should be dead. Because he had spoken of desired repentance, safe in the knowledge that he would never have to deliver on it. Because something had been changed in him when he lay dying in the wreckage of the Iifa Tree, a deep rift torn in his fragile certainties. Because no matter how much he wanted to keep running from it forever, the fact stood unchanged.  

He could no longer run from himself. 

This familiar powerlessness filled him with an even more familiar fear. Infuriatingly, the same fear that death was supposed to have freed him from. It was the only emotion, save for searing rage, that he understood well enough to suffer in its entirety. 

If there yet existed retribution for him in this continued existence, he knew, it would be to live as a prisoner to fear once again. 

The grief of his brooding sat low in his stomach as the thoughts began to pile up, and Kuja let his eyes fall shut in resignation. The rain now beat more heavily on the leaves that had sheltered him, the noise of thunder drawing closer. With the forces of nature clearly indifferent to his woes, the time to dally seemed to be reaching its end. 

Still, he allowed a few more moments to pass, long and uneasy, as he tried to coax himself into returning to the village. It would mean facing Terra—something he was not quite prepared to do with a mind overflowing with new doubts. And though there would also be a scolding to follow when he did, he knew he had regrettably little choice in the matter. 

Even less choice, he realized bitterly, as he caught sight of a cloaked figure cresting the closest hillside. 

Always glad to spurn the need for acknowledgement, his gaze found refuge in the dewy grass at his side. The fact that this exchange would not take place on his terms did not mean he would submit willingly to it. Instead, he meditated on the patter of rainfall until the marshy sound of footsteps in wet vegetation paused before him.  

The stubborn desire to retain the guise of indifference warred only briefly with the discomfort of being observed. Delaying the inevitable seemed pointless enough to end his wavering, and so Kuja eased his glare up, still reluctant, to confirm what he already knew he would find. 

An equally reluctant gaze, shrouded in the shadow of a hood. Terra was knelt beside him, face flushed rosy from the chill morning breeze, and the smallest hint of relief washed into her expression when their eyes met. The sour frown he granted her in return did not share the sentiment. 

“Good morning,” she greeted softly, smile tenuous but nonetheless full of cheer. The warmth of it, combined with her disregard for his contempt, only fed the flames of his irritation. 

“Is it really?” With a disinterested smirk, he glanced meaningfully at the stormy horizon. The truth behind her formalities was painfully obvious. “Did this pleasant weather bring you out here, then? Or the loose lips of your children?” 

He'd had the misfortune of being joined by a few them in the early morning hours. Mutual curiosity presented the chance for a worthwhile trade, some of his time and fleeting patience bartered for scraps of information about the world he now found himself in. The uneasiness that his recent revelations had bred in him was a more distant reason for tolerating the distraction of company—and decidedly not one he was willing to accept. 

Terra seemed to consider his question for a moment before her smile twitched slightly. It was a familiar sign that he recognized as good humor. “If you hadn’t guessed by now, we look out for each other around here. You’ve come to the wrong town if you don’t want to be worried after.” 

“Clearly,” Kuja muttered, not the least bit endeared by the idea. “In fact, the amount of time you continue to invest in a stranger is nothing short of mad.” 

An amused laugh answered this. “Almost as mad as sitting out in a rainstorm, I’d say.” 

Playful as they were intended, her words agitated an already sore subject. He peered down at his lap again, tail flicking unappreciatively where it rested upon his thigh. The howling wind in the leaves overhead filled the silence with a fury not unlike what still simmered inside of him. 

And, just as he had expected, the absence of a sharp retort did not go unnoticed. 

“ _But_ —” she began again, and there was a softness to it even as it rose against the wind. “I’ve already told you that I don't think you're mad. So, there must be something on your mind...” 

His eyes wandered up to find her calm gaze. Imploring, the want for his trust as evident as it had always been, but demanding nothing. This subtle consideration for his right to decide was a gesture that resonated distinctly, showing a kind of respect that he had never been granted in his past life. 

It lingered in his thoughts, a peculiar anomaly, before he finally relented. “My night was an...unrestful one. It brought dreams that I believe are memories, as impossible as I may find that to be.” 

A faint surprise entered her expression, a rapid blink betraying it at once. No doubt she had not anticipated such a thing so soon, but the hint of apprehension that he recognized there was more difficult to make sense of. 

Inclining her head forward slightly, she lowered her eyes. “How much have you remembered, then?” 

 _Everything_ , a voice inside of him lashed out immediately, alight with anger yet untamed. But the memory of unfathomable despair remained tight and heavy in his chest, and he whispered instead, “Enough.” 

Terra did not reply, her face pensive and still. The droplets of rain that had found her cheeks gave the disquieting appearance of tears, both strange and familiar. 

“I see,” she finally spoke, low and quiet as his own voice had been. “I can understand your need to be alone right now, then, but—” 

She paused, pulling her cloak more tightly to her throat. “There are dark clouds moving in, and this storm will surely worsen before nightfall. You really _should_ return to the village.” 

Kuja glanced up to find her smile returned, tentative though it was. She offered a hand with it, which he regarded with an unreadable stare. 

“I’ve put some tea on. You needn’t join me, but if it would be of any comfort...” 

Another crash of thunder rumbled in the distance, but in that moment the sound seemed to belong to a different world. He found himself on the precipice of accepting her generosity yet again, now with a lifetime of failures to remind him how very undeserving he was of it. 

“I’ll be here to listen.” 

The rebel in him balked at the indignity of enduring her pity once more, and the martyr in him that demanded punishment could not even bear the thought of it. But the _child_ in him, a perfectly ignorant being untouched by kindness— 

It was perhaps this, then, that compelled him to gently take her hand in his.


	11. Chapter 11

Far more quickly than it had arrived, the storm swelled into a fierce downpour. The wooden roof planks bore the abuse in the form of a constant, monotonous din, drowning out both the low crackling of the fire and the sound of children in the rooms below. 

And still, it seemed, the seething voices of unease within could not be quieted. The insidious treachery of the mind, unyielding even as the world around remained ever-changing. It left him with only an increasingly grating silence to maintain between them as they dried themselves upon the hearth. 

Regarding the dark amber liquid in his cup scornfully, Kuja thought not for the first time since their return that he had erred in accepting her offer. Making sense of these bizarre circumstances would have been enough of a challenge, certainly. But the added complications seemed to grow by the moment, with one foremost fact always dancing just beyond the reach of understanding. 

She was still _so_ very familiar.  

The most incomprehensible part of it all, buried deeply as it was—felt deeply as it was. More inconceivable now than ever, with memories too steeped in darkness to have seen the light he'd found in her eyes.  

It should have been impossible. It _was_ impossible. 

But in that moment? He’d known it then. 

The hasty retreat to the shelter of her home, her grip still tight in his against the windswept rain. Uneven footing, a stumbled lurch to her knees. She had glanced up, expression awestruck when their gazes met, and something unspeakable had flooded him in turn as he carefully steadied her before him. 

Really, there should have been no surprise in the subtle hint that her stare betrayed. Admiration, that which had long fed the insatiable hunger of doubt that could never truly be quelled. A work of divine perfection, ruthless sapphire against soft moonlight and cream, he considered this reverence to be his birthright. And, gifted as he was with the ideal of unnatural beauty, the matching affect of vain aristocracy could only come just as easily. It had been almost effortless to leverage that eternal youth and splendor for a life of subterfuge among shallow beings.

So what shock was there, then, that this girl would be taken with him in such a way? It should have sated his ego, secured a degree of power over her—and been the end of it. 

But that, of course, would _not_ be the end of it. 

Because as much as he still wished to deny it, a mesmerizing thrill of longing had just as surely risen to answer her shy smile. It was a strangeness that he could now fully appreciate, cutting a sharp contrast to years spent in solitude and disdain. A longing that left a heaviness in his chest, where once only emptiness resided, and he knew then, he _knew_ — 

“Is it all right?” 

The suddenness of her voice pulled him from his reverie, blue eyes at once darting from the fire to the woman beside it. Watching him with interest over her tea, the mildness to Terra’s tone suggested that she sensed his distant thoughts. 

“The tea,” she amended quickly, the quirk of a small smile now evident. “Is it to your liking?” 

Kuja blinked, sparing a glance at the steaming teacup that he had set aside. It wasn’t nearly to his liking, in truth. He preferred a sweetness in drinks that most would describe as insufferable, and whatever she had prepared was intensely bitter.  

An equally bitter reply was tantalizingly close, a force of habit, but it was quick to dull and lose shape. He cast his gaze back to the fire before answering noncommittally, “I suppose it serves its purpose.” 

A vibrant giggle came in return, quiet but full of delight. “Coeurl sage makes terrible tea without some honey added to it. I was just surprised you didn’t say anything.” 

His eyebrows came together, at once peeved and unreserved about showing it. She had been toying with him again. Good-natured, as it always was, but being on the receiving end of such teasing remained both unfamiliar and unwelcome. 

“I would’ve made it that way, if I’d had any honey left,” Terra added now, damp golden wisps falling in her face as she looked down into her own tea. “But it’s been a few weeks since we received goods from the outside. Mobliz is too far away from other towns or ports for anything but airship travel.” 

This information was enough to snap him from his annoyance, swiftly hiding it just as soon with an indifferent expression. The map he had surveyed last night squared with her statement—he had in fact found himself on the remote edge of a strange world. No magic, no means of transportation, and almost no knowledge of the outlying terrain and its hazards. 

“Fortunately, I _do_ know someone with an airship.” Her smile returned again, fondness in the words. “One of my friends pilots one. He’s been using it to aid in the restoration efforts lately. I’ve heard he’s across the sea in Thamasa right now, but I know he’ll turn up here before the week is through.” 

When he said nothing to this, she allowed the silence to linger for a moment. The weight of a one-sided conversation did not seem to trouble her nearly as much as it should have. 

“I’d be happy to introduce you,” she tried, the sound of her cup clinking softly as she set it beside her on the floor. “If you wouldn’t mind it, of course.” 

And at last, she won a smirk from him. “Introduce me as what, exactly?” 

The question drew from her another laugh. “I was thinking as a friend,” she answered lightly, fingers curling into the blanket at her shoulder. 

Just as rapidly as it had appeared, his amusement vanished. “As I recall it, we hardly know each other. Your standard for a friend cannot _possibly_ be that generous.” 

“Every friend is a stranger at first. What’s wrong with being fast friends?” 

An increasingly apparent truth, the earnestness in her expression was more difficult to resent than he would have liked. It gave him cause to bite his tongue on the response that waited eagerly, that he never wanted nor needed a friend. Instead, curiosity bubbled to the surface. 

“And what would be required of me, then?” Kuja asked carefully, as if they were negotiating terms. “If I were to agree to— _that_.” 

She took the opportunity to inch closer, shrinking the cold distance between them. It wasn’t quite unexpected at this point, knowing her disposition, but it still made him bristle nonetheless. 

“Well—that isn’t really how being friends works,” she said now, hands falling to her lap. “You don’t _have_ to do anything. It just means that you like someone, and that you trust them.” 

 _Trust?_ Was she honestly suggesting that she could _trust_ him? Kuja regarded her smile warily, incredulity hidden in an icy stare. It was true that she had asked for some of his trust before, but the idea of getting it back in kind seemed an impossibility. After all, it had made him so gleeful before, in another place and time, that he owed loyalty to no one.

Now, studying her peaceful expression, he could only wonder if being trusted was a burden too heavy for him to bear. 

He felt her fingers brush the back of his hand, more reluctant than her words had been. When he met her violet eyes, there was no doubt in them, and it was the most terrifying sight he had ever beheld. 

“So—” The tone in her voice was thicker, something amiss, but she did not reveal it. “Friends, maybe?” 

An answer did not come to him immediately. He glanced down, away from her expectant gaze. He couldn’t stand the thought of what she would find in his own eyes, or perhaps more honestly, what he knew could never be found there. 

“If it would please you,” he finally spoke, too low to impart any confidence, “then, consider it so.” 

Her fingers pressed into him, a joyful motion, and he willed himself to look at her. She was smiling again, a warm and contented smile, as he felt her touch withdraw. It was clear from this that she was feeling something well beyond his comprehension, something so complex and yet infuriatingly simple in nature. 

“I—” she began quietly, a brief shake of her head. “I don’t know if it’s all right to ask this even as a friend. But I wondered, since you’ve remembered—” 

The glare that he held on her did not waver. Her tactfulness could be almost maddening at times, and so he wordlessly urged her to finish. 

“I wondered if there was a name that I could call you by.” Terra had turned her gaze from him, shame apparent. “It’s just that—I don't know how you feel about it. Sometimes even the small things are difficult to talk about at first.” 

This, miraculously, _did_ catch him off guard. Kuja drew back from her slightly, unintended, but just enough to catch her attention. Shame turned to regret in her downcast expression, and some impulse bid him to correct this at once. 

“I’m—not offended that you should ask. Don’t think me so easily wounded.” More candid than he’d hoped, yet quick to mask it. He looked down just the same to avoid her own troubled stare. “ _And_ , it’s not a matter of distrust, either, so you can cease your pouting.” 

She kept her silence still, though her lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. It might have been a grimace, truthfully, because he suspected she knew his conflict far too well. 

“It’s simply—” He paused, trying to dispel the tight sensation in his throat. There was nothing simple about it, so he tried another course. “I can’t claim that history. No part of it, until I know for certain. But it's—” 

As if breaking from a trance, Terra seized his wrist in her warm grasp. Her familiar gesture of comfort, or perhaps it was the best way she knew to communicate that she understood. That it was all right to take this slowly, because they were— _friends_ , now, for all that did and did not mean to him. 

“It’s impossible,” he finished, dejected and welling up with the same frustration. “What I remember—is _impossible_.” 

A hum of thought, and she asked the question he knew she eventually would. “And why is it impossible?” 

" _Because_.” He sighed, dramatically put out. “My memories are of a world that certainly is _not_ this one. The map you’ve shown me—the peculiarities of magic you’ve described. None of it is right. Absolutely none of it.” 

Something shifted in her expression, a spark of fascination. “It isn’t _entirely_ impossible that you’ve arrived here from another realm. I was born in the world of the espers and brought to this world from it. There surely could be paths to other places unseen.” 

“I’m afraid that couldn’t be the case for me.” The tightness in his throat settled low in his chest, the memory drifting too close now, and he looked into her eyes with a lingering vulnerability that could not be concealed. “I’m _more_ than sure of it. That my final recollection is of an—” 

His voice caught, staggered. Too close, and made horribly real by giving voice to it. “An indisputable death.” 

It wasn’t unusual that sadness should seep into her with this confession. The thought occurred to him that sadness seemed to be the most frequent emotion he could provoke from her, and it drew words both soft and stern from him. 

“I shouldn’t think it to be worthy of your sympathy, Terra.” He flexed the fingers of his good hand, forming a fist in disgust. “It was my own invention, really. You see, I rushed toward that end with all the foolishness and insanity of a man with nothing to lose. Because—” 

A cold chill ran the length of his spine, an imperceptible tremor brought forth by a terror he had not yet unearthed. _Because...!_  

Because he had been soon to perish. The force of it struck him now with almost the same strength that it first had, bringing with it a question, shrill and unavoidable and suddenly _there_. 

Was death still upon him? Was _this_ the punishment now at hand? Rather than the merciful release of nonexistence—was he meant to live again, to perhaps dare hope for something more than emptiness this time, only to watch it slip through his fingers? 

“You don’t have to say anything more about it,” Terra whispered quietly, and he remembered then how close she had drawn to him. The proximity of her body was tangible, unable to be ignored, and yet his heavy thoughts made the discomfort a far-off priority. “Sometimes it’s best to let things work out in their own time.” 

Kuja frowned at her, pushing the swelling dread down deep. It would wait there for as long as it had to. “I don’t think you quite understand. You’ve welcomed me into your home without knowing _anything_ about me, or what I’m capable of—” 

His thoughts were cut short as she reached out, as if to touch his face, and he froze in apprehension. A gentle brush that teased at his hair, coming away with a white blossom that she cradled in her hands with a smile. 

Recognition dawned, a moment remembered, and he cast his gaze away from her with a terrible heat overcoming his face. Oh, he’d forgotten _that_ , in all of his misery, and she’d said _nothing_ about it. 

Two little girls, no older than six, if he had to guess. Smitten as they were with his lovely wealth of hair, with a refreshing innocence that could be tolerated, if not embraced, in the midst of an unbearable crisis. The delicately woven flowers now seemed much too pure a gift, and he shook his head curtly in aggravation. 

But Terra merely regarded the bloom thoughtfully, her smile soft. “Shadelilies. I wonder where they found them?” 

He watched her turn it over in her hands, still eyeing her harshly. Whatever words of venom he wanted to pierce her assumptions with, they stubbornly remained buried in misgivings. 

“I haven’t seen them in so long,” she continued, and when she turned her gaze to him now, his doubt only grew. “They’re night bloomers. I used to find them in the early mornings, as a child.” 

Her hand took his again, so very slowly, placing the fragile blossom in his palm. Its petals were soft, tender against his skin, and he caught her gaze with a paralyzing transparency. 

“Surviving the night—it isn’t such an easy thing to do.” Her touch lingered on him, and her words were no longer of the flowers. “But, you know…those of us that do still have the choice to remain in light.” 

His fingers twitched, the featherlight weight of the flower suddenly crushing. There was a terror to light that could never be matched by even the darkest of horrors that he had endured. It was the great adjudicator, a sanctity he knew he was unworthy to grasp, for it would only find him wanting. 

But her grip on him did not falter, her gaze free from sympathetic lies. As if she was seeing clear to his soul, this time—his utterly imperfect soul, a bestowed blessing that had only ever plagued him as a curse. 

What did it mean, truly, to remain in light? Had he asked this question of himself before, in resignation, the life steadily bleeding from him in the depths of that infernal tree? Had he greeted his death at last, convinced that he was far too weak to ever know? 

There was an answer waiting somewhere in her smile, and as he closed his fingers on the wilting lily, he was certain he wanted to find it.


	12. Chapter 12

It had perhaps been foolish, Kuja thought, to seek out a place of refuge on the battlefield of the gods.  

The vast stone expanse of the ancient Chaos Shrine stretched before him, a relic of time immemorial, presently littered end to end with crystalline fragments. Familiar remnants left behind by manikins, the shallow imitations that harried the champions of Cosmos, and thus an unmistakable sign that at least one such warrior had passed through this realm. 

Loathe as he was to admit it, the enemy’s ranks were not lacking in formidable soldiers, and so the ficklest among Chaos’s pawns proceeded with a hint of caution. It would not do, he knew, to risk falling to such insignificant beings.  

No, it would not do at all. He simply couldn’t lose again. Not before his masterpiece of vengeance was complete. 

Splintered debris crackled in protest as he took a few careful steps through it, cold gaze tracing the path of shards over the edge of a stone precipice. The belly of the shrine hid in shadow below, along with the potential for conflict. A mutual opportunity for an ambush—and a tactical decision that, if miscalculated, could very easily rob him of the one victory that mattered most. 

Though a creature of vanity he might have been, the desperate instinct to survive would not be compromised by the flimsy trappings of confidence that he wore so well. And so his more reasonable sensibilities bid him to quit this place, disadvantaged as he was in his ignorance. To find a more palatable sanctuary.  

It would be the strictly logical course of action. Certainly, it would. 

But it was not logic that urged him on toward the crumbling ledge, nor anything that resembled rationality. Rather, the incessant taunts of his unworthy allies filled the silence of the shrine—of his tender ego—with a clearly spoken challenge. 

On the best of days, they regarded him as a useful accessory to their own designs. More often, as an inferior puppet that lacked the experience to present a respectable threat to their own power. The time witch derided him as a flawed vessel. The haughty tyrant sneered at him behind his scepter. Even the insane jester, an impudent fool if there ever was one, treated him as little more than a toy to wind up for his amusement. 

He had sought this place of solitude for the very reason of escaping their insufferable presence. A fleeting moment to ponder his own goals and, perhaps, conclude with some means of enacting his will without the fair-weather aid of his ordained peers. Their collective voices jeered spitefully in his mind, and with it came the subconscious burn of magic beneath his skin.  

To flee might be prudent, but it would also be a confession of defeat and weakness. And, as for the being that dared to linger in his chosen realm of respite? His wrath would be a favor returned in kind. 

There was but an instant to indulge in the thought as he revealed himself to the interior of the shrine, giving the landscape below a cursory assessment. The throne below, ruined stone columns, and a greater concentration of manikin shrapnel. In the darkness that covered most of the details, it wasn’t hard to make out the strange aberration. 

A luminous lavender figure, motionless at the center of the destruction. 

Every fiber of his body tensed at the sight. Despite all of his lust for this chance, he had not expected it to present itself so soon. Delicate features twisted into a frown. His love for theatrics had given a particular sense of perfection to the scene he had pictured in his head, one that was distinctly absent from the present moment. 

There were, however, certain occasions where a bit of improvisation was called for. 

A venomous smirk had found its way to his lips as he made a quick descent, the hum of shrewdly suppressed energy heralding his arrival. Kuja concentrated it into a spiral of holy light, twirling elegantly forth for the opening blow. 

His target below reacted almost too late, a pulse of its own energy flaring out wildly as it darted deeper into the shrine. Its reaction took the shape of spreading flames, and with a quickness born only out of reflex, he cast a barrier that deflected the attack with ease. As he watched his opponent collide roughly with a shattered pillar, driven back by the force of its own strength, one fact became painfully clear.  

This creature was not Zidane. 

The abrupt realization halted his pursuit for a moment, suspended precariously over the seemingly lifeless form of his enemy. Surprise was quick to become a thread of curiosity. Who was this warrior that could walk this world unknown to him, possessed of a form held only by two of its unwilling participants? And, were they to truly command the power of Trance, what cause did they have to flee him so hastily? 

He would not have his answer from a corpse. That unpleasant truth stung as he drifted lazily down to join the other being, no more than a short stride from the ruined column that had thwarted their frenzied escape. Retaliatory fire waited ready at his fingertips, a few paces forward, carefully closing the space between them. 

And the creature stirred. 

Observing closely, he paused warily, but made no attempt to engage. The movements of his opponent were dazed and uncertain, hardly threatening. Almost that of a confused child, unfitting of the brief surge of power they had displayed, and they looked— 

Oh, how they looked so infuriatingly _familiar._ The resemblance was beyond uncanny. 

Golden claws scraped against the rubble as they rose to a low crouch, that unmistakable lavender glow painted sheer along a slender, feminine figure. A wild mane of the same shade obscured their face, head bowed in a gesture that did not quite betray any intentions. 

Then, it came forth. A small, pained sound—barely a whimper. The whimper of a frightened girl, deceptively at odds with the smoldering yellow eyes that rose to meet his. 

For a moment, there was only silence. Dust drifted in the air before him, between them, and it seemed nearly as palpable as the churn of magic he could feel in the aura of this— _this_ — 

“Don’t—come any closer!” 

The tender voice that burst forth was suffused with urgency. A plea, or a command? Unmoved as he was by both of these things, it was instead that same persistent intrigue that would stay his hand. 

For now, at least. 

“Please,” the feral being with the voice of a woman begged, a tearful tone this time, and her head fell again. “Stay away from me. I—don’t want to hurt you.” 

They were bold words, given the circumstances, but they were not strengthened by the fact that she now rested on her knees. Exhaustion, expended energy—the sea of obliterated manikins gave a reason to these obvious facts. 

But it was a challenge just the same, and from one who wore the guise and power of Trance? He would not suffer that continued indignity. 

“It would appear that you’ve made an unfortunate assumption,” Kuja replied carefully, keeping his irritation masked behind amused disinterest. “If you care to see for yourself, you certainly won’t find it such an easy feat.” 

She examined his smirk, the threat barely permeating the veil of tears, before her gaze trailed back to the far end of the shrine. “Those— _things_ attacked me. I didn’t want to fight them, but I was—afraid—and I—” 

“Destroyed them utterly?” he finished dryly, an unchanging lilt of confidence. “Or so I’d gather.” 

Her eyes dropped to the floor, apparently displeased by the reminder. Had Cosmos really been foolish enough to summon a warrior with no will to fight? 

“Who are you?” she asked quietly now, claws digging into the stone beneath them. “I haven’t met anyone here but those strange soldiers.” 

“A poor soul called to this wretched world, to serve the whims of a god.” He shrugged, moving incrementally closer to loom over her. The apprehension in her stare confirmed that she did not find this conversational distance to be quite to her liking. “Exactly the same as you, I imagine.” 

She shook her head, lips parting to speak, before falling silent at once. With a dull pulsing of light, the splendor of fur and color faded from her body, leaving behind a dramatically different sight. Clearly that form of hers was unsustainable, another echo of Trance, and he could not stop himself from narrowing his eyes with disdain at the thought. 

Nothing more than a frail girl now cowered in the shadows of the shrine’s interior. Troubled eyes peered out from behind ashen blonde locks, a petite build draped in the fabric of a red dress. Colorful sashes adorned her waist, an altogether jovial and irreverent costume, and as he witnessed her transformation, there was something unpleasantly familiar about _this_ form of hers too. 

A certain loathsome clown, ever fixated on his missing slave, appeared in his mind without delay. There was a special kind of hatred that he reserved for _that_ one, and here he found himself with the fool’s greatest desire right before him. 

“So, I can only guess that _you_ are Kefka’s lost puppet,” he spoke softly, insidious fascination bleeding into his tone. The word seemed enough to win her gaze immediately, the renewed fear an apparent sign of recognition. “I would say he’s losing his mind searching for you, if he had a mind to lose.” 

“Kefka...” She repeated it quietly, almost resigned. “Is that why you’ve come, then? Why you attacked me?” 

Insult rose to the surface at once, and he folded his arms in disgust. “Don’t mistake me for one of his allies. I would much sooner end you myself, if it meant denying him his wishes.” 

The confused expression that answered him preceded the inevitable question. “Then why didn’t you?” 

“ _Because_. I would know more about this power you wield.” Kuja rolled his eyes, quickly defensive in the face of her distinct sincerity. “What do you call it?” 

“I...I don’t know what it is,” she admitted, one hand clutching at her shoulder. What little fortitude that had been in her voice had vanished again. “Just that—I can’t control it, and it—” 

Her voice caught, faltering, and her words turned to a near whisper. “It scares me.” 

Oh, of _all_ the ridiculous things he had ever heard. 

“It _scares_ you?” He tilted his head slightly, equal parts incredulity and annoyance. “Your own strength troubles you more than the thought of returning to his thrall?” 

There was something about it that touched a nerve, and he expected she heard it in his harsh indictment. Obscured memories, something felt rather than remembered, and so very incensed by her words of weakness. Freedom, that cherished right of existence—she held the power to defend it in her own hands, and rejected it? 

She hung her head again, and said nothing. 

“A pity,” he muttered, distaste edging just a bit too close to disappointment. “Then, it seems you have allowed that worthless fool to rule you yet.” 

Frustration roiled angrily in his mind, his own spiteful hatred of the fool in question undoubtedly thrusting itself onto this broken girl. It was a realization that bothered him more than it should have, and he frowned, practical truths assaulting his lofty position of arrogance. What hope did she stand against the madman, when he himself had fallen victim to his plots time and again? Was that truly the fate of creatures such as they were, lovely and dangerous—to be the hapless prey of inferior masters? 

He could no more free her from the chains of doubt than he ever had himself, but her violet eyes lifted to meet his at last, tearful again, and a peculiar question was suddenly present in his mind.

There was something the clown had stolen from her, a word never to be uttered even to his companions. The beginning and end of an identity, a gift both simple and sublime, waiting to be reclaimed. He would hear it from her own lips.

“What is your name?”


End file.
